When I first agreed to give blood with my mom, I did not really know what I was getting into. I honestly thought it would be easy and it would only take like five minutes, I was wrong. 

As soon as I went into the building, I had to check my temperature, clean my hands, then I checked in. After about a five-minute wait, a lady took me to a seat and checked my ID, and began asking me questions. 

 The questions they asked were very specific and some were very interesting, to say the least. After the question part, they checked my blood pressure and temperature again. She then pricked my middle finger on my left hand, put my blood on this little pallet, and put it in a machine to check my iron levels. 

I am never really nervous about giving blood until I’m in the chair and they are about to put the needle in. For me it has not gotten easier, I have given blood twice and both times they had to move the needle around to try and find the vein. It hurt to say the least. To make it worse, I am one of those people who has to know what is going on, so I always look at my arm while all of this is happening and I can see the needle moving around in there. 

Eventually, they did get the needle in my arm and got the blood pumping. It did take a while and it stung. I had to squeeze a stress ball every about five seconds to help the blood flow. 

Even though it hurt, I tried to be as positive as possible, which was hard. There were times when I just wanted to ask for them to just take it out, but I always come to the same conclusion, people really need this. 

I remember when my grandparents were in the hospital after a car accident, they had lost a lot of blood and needed this to survive. 

I know with Covid and everything going on, a lot of people need this. Even though it might hurt for a couple hours, as long as that means it will help just one other person, I will give blood.