8 million mosquitos can't be wrong...

I entered college as a nursing major.  My aspirations of being a nurse and saving hundreds lives in my boldly printed scrubs lasted exactly 6 weeks.  What broke me?  Needles and blood.

Needless to say, because of my fear of these two things that sent me running from nursing to literally any other major, I have never had a strong interest in giving blood.  When blood drive sign ups would roll around, I would recite my lame go-to excuses ("I went to Mexico," "I'm probably anemic," "My blood is...uh...weird, so I don't think they'd want it," etc.) as I ran away as fast as possible.

And as if my fear of blood and needles wasn’t enough to keep me away from the nearest blood drive, the nightmarish stories of people’s horrible experiences with giving blood certainly did the trick:

“Oh yeah, Danielle, it was awful.  I got there and whole place smelled like blood.  I waited in line forever, my dread growing every second.  I thought they had ripped the tip of my finger off when they did the finger prick.  I seriously think the blade hit the bone.  Then I had an allergic reaction to the iodine the nurse wiped on my arm, and my whole arm went numb.  And after she stuck me 10 times in each arm, I passed out when I saw my blood go into the bag.  Then when I came to, I threw up all over the nurse, right in front of the really cute guy in the next chair.  Then I sat there for 20 minutes while my blood slowly filled up the bag.  I seriously thought I would die in the chair.  After I was done, I went to go get the free snacks, and they were out of water, and the cookie I ate was hard as a rock.  Then I passed out again.”

Hmmm...I'll be sure to put that on my "to-don't" list...

But with encouragement from a friend who assured me that the pain level was not akin to that of having your arm chopped off with a hack saw like I had previously believed, I decided to face my fears and donate blood.  And I’m so glad that I did!

It was a really great experience.  The nurses were really funny and stuck me on the first try.  I never even came close to passing out.  I had a good laugh when I heard a little boy tell the man donating next to me that his blood looked like BBQ sauce.  Yes, the room smelled like blood and the finger prick hurt, but my arm is still attached to my body, which is more than I expected.

But what I wasn’t expecting was to save three lives today!  In my mind-consuming fear of the blood and needles, I didn't have the brain capacity to remember that by giving blood I get to give life to someone who might have lost his or her life without my donation.  I think that’s worth a finger prick.

So here’s to trying new things, saving three lives, friends that encourage you to face your fears, and eating free peanut butter brownies made by the sweet old ladies who volunteer for the Red Cross!

To learn more about donating blood, visit redcrossblood.org.