Greeting all, I am still about, thank you for your kind comments in the meantime, rest assured even when absent for a while I have not deserted. I can tell it’s been a while since I last posted because the posting window and everything is all different, I don’t know you go away for a little while and everything changes!

Readers who have been around here a while, crazy deranged fools that they are, may remember a hoo-ha some while ago, in fact nearly 2 years ago now where I was debating the calling to give blood and lamenting that having made the decision that I would face my fear of needles and attempt it I was cruelly denied because I had a lurgy of some description. The original Bloody Hell! entry. I discussed the fact that I would have to go through the same rigmorol in August, the next time the donor service came.

Since that point I have been signed up for about 5 appointments and I have managed to be ill for every single one of them. I don’t mean seriously ill or anything but of course they can’t take the chance so even a bit of a cold is too much of a risk. I had practically given up on the idea. I presumed I was going to be ill yesterday because it was another appointment, however apart from feeling slightly the worse for wear at having had a skinful at the pub’s quiz night on Wed. I was relatively ok.

So now I have experienced the procedure in its entireity and a sack of my claret has been carried off for some worthy purpose. Yes I do feel a sense of altruism after all the whole giving blood situation seems to me to go against any idea that humans are inherently greedy. After all I did not gain from the experience, apart from a couple of stickers and a cuddly blood drop for the kids, oh and a pack of 3 jammy dodgers, but to get this I had to endure first someone stabbing my finger with the old chesnut “most people tell me this hurts more than the needle giving blood” Oh no, nurse let me tell you that line does not work as a placebo because it is patently bollocks. Then i got the steel equivalent of a hosepipe shoved up my arm and got sucked in a most vampirical and clinical fashion. No, this definitely did not do it for me as a leisure past time. However the sense afterwards that I had survived and consequently someone who might need it may be able in turn to survive their ordeal is the feeling that will make me return to donate again. It is simply the right thing to do, it isn’t pleasant, but equally it isn’t unbearable just 5 minutes of minor discomfort (actually the needle does hurt but it’s those bloody blood pressure type bands, I fecking hate them.) and then you’re done.

Of course even the ‘you’re done’ bit isn’t quite so straight forward since you have to wait for 3 weeks whilst all sorts of tests are carried out to determine that you are neither going to die nor kill anyone else. I am of course presuming that everything is fine, I have no reason to suspect anything less but there is always the fear that you might get a letter saying “Dear Mr Baron, thank you for giving blood at your local session, we regret to inform you that you are going to die and therefore we will be unable to use your blood on this or any subsequent occasion. If you have a penchant for, or are attemtping aversion therapy with regard to needles might we suggest heroin as an option, it’s not as if you’ll be alive long enough for the side effects!”

Oh and I have a new group of people to pour distain on now, the boy blood racers, who sit there timing their pint removal and try to get done as quick as possible. Of course as a first timer I was I’m sure in the slow lane pootling along at the blood equivalent of 70mph as these young hooligans roar past with their 4m 31s, bloody youth of today, no patience!

Anyway, there is a good chance now that some unsuspecting RTA victim will soon receive part of the baron and all that this entails. I had not thought of this before as a potential method to populate the revolution but it is worth further scrutiny. If there is something in my blood that makes up who I am this will presumably be passed on, perhaps not in enough quantity to be of any difference, I shall have to look at that angle but it’s something to think about isn’t it. Bikers and haemophilliacs of the world unite!

Song Of The Day ~ Embrace – No Use Crying

Original Comments:


The Capt. made this comment,
Red Baron: It’s a good to give blood. Thanks for stopping by and commenting. Even if Bush is not the `genius’ behind the events – he IS the FACE of the con that’s been pulled. Even with his goofiness HE was the one who got the consensus from the Democrats and the American public to do the things he’s done, with little flack. Don’t let that slow folksy way fool you. The guy is charming, I just can’t stand his policies.
The Capt.

comment added :: 24th March 2006, 14:36 GMT+01 :: http://thecapt.blog-city.com
Spike made this comment,
When giving blood I always go for the anisthetic first, that way when my viens move as the needle goes in I don’t feel it!
comment added :: 24th March 2006, 15:24 GMT+01
Kristie made this comment,
Only goes to show that men are wimps. But good on ya, Baron, for going on ahead anyway.
comment added :: 24th March 2006, 16:15 GMT+01
baracuda made this comment,
I haven’t given blood in a few years (since I moved to England) I quite enjoy it though, especially when people faint, that’s always a good laugh.
I Ireland you ger Guinness after giving blood, none of this hoity toity tea and jammy dodgers.

Guinness has lots of iron in it see? So it replenishes your lost stocks…

-Redbaron responds – Mmm yes, yes Guinness is good for you and all that, I could have done with a pint of the old Liffy water me’self, they didn’t tell me they don’t let you have a cup of tea on your first time! I did make a good chicken liver stroganoff for the iron content and now I know that I’m reasonably ok I should be ok for the black stuff next time as well.-

comment added :: 25th March 2006, 08:47 GMT+01 :: http://myveryownblog.blog-city.com/