A spell

Well, it started well. My blood donation this evening featured my highest iron level in quite some time - a good bounce back from the low of the previous donation. After the donation though, I rested for ten minutes and then got up and went to the toilet. I had drunk a lot before the donation. However, while I stood letting nature take its course I felt a little lightheaded, and as time went on my eyes were fuzzing over. I managed to finish and zip up before lurching out of the room and then staggered straight for a couch, while at the same time muttering something to the nurse in the kitchen area. She knew what to do - and then enforced the procedure to the nth degree. I had to stay flat on my back, feet up high with ankles and wrists rotating and coughing till she said (this was to get the blood flowing back to the brain). Then I could put my legs down. And then five minutes later I got a pillow under my head. And then 5 minutes later she let me sit up. And then I had to stay for about 20 more minutes. But on the positive side, they paid for my taxi back home! I actually got back right when I said I would.

This is the first time in 23 donations that I've had an adverse reaction. But it is a good lesson in what to be careful of as well as the procedure for when someone becomes lightheaded.

Drained

Some moments I think to myself, gee this could be a rather poor decision, and even with this comprehension of the possible adverse effects of a particular choice, I do, more often than not, do the exact thing that my brain has comprehensively told me that it was unwise to do.

These last two weeks I've been running at an unprecedentedly high number of hours of work and had been feeling rather drained. Nevertheless, I decided that Friday night was the best opportunity I had to donate blood. This even though the planned final Trailwalker training weekend was to follow immediately. They tested my iron. Not good. A reading of 135, a lot below my recent average of 155, only 5 points above the minimum iron theshold, and only 2 points higher than my low-point of 133 (after which I had a mild bout of anaemia).

To donate blood or not to donate blood? Of course not, but did I listen. Anyway, the Trailwalker Training Weekend was tough. The first day was a magnificent march from Milford to my home. Magnificent in that it was 46km long and done in 11 hours 20 minutes. Surprisingly, I had no obvious tiredness, just soreness. Today we did an additional 20km while shopping and striding up two volcanic cones.

Now it's over and now I feel so damn sleepy. Perhaps it is the lack of blood and iron thing... or perhaps I've just had a very long two weeks and one arduous weekend.