Lake Success Donor Center

I made an online appointment here because of the convenient location. I scheduled myself to give a platelet donation at 6:00pm, which is really convenient for me. As soon as I walked through the door, I was greeted by a man behind the receptionist desk who immediately knew I was here for a platelet appointment before I can say a word. He led me to an area to fill out an application and as soon as I finished, a doctor with the name tag, Frank, took me into a cubicle where he asked for my ID, asked me to put a paper thermometer in my mouth, sterilized my finger, and took the side of my ring finger and immediately performed the poke finger test for iron levels all while in conversation. I’m not going to lie about the finger test. It hurt and Frank knows it does because he probably says it a million times to other donors. It seems within seconds, the results came back that my iron is satisfactory. He then measured my blood pressure and placed two fingers on my wrist to figure out my heart rate. All of this was done quickly, efficiently and probably under five minutes. I was instantaneously led out of the room onto an available donor chair, which looked like dentist chairs, but more high tech and clean. Frank asked me if I would like to give a whole blood donation at the same time and I agreed to it. Since I answered yes, I had to switch to another donor seat to make this double donation possible. I saw a few donors already giving blood, all of them calm and looking sedated. I was given a release form to sign that states I understand the risks of donating. The paper states there is no evidence to show that donating platelets does any long term damage to humans. Afterwards, I was asked which arm to use and I told them the last time I used my right arm, so the right arm was used again. Frank rubbed my arm with an alcohol pad as required for thirty seconds before inserting in the needle into my arm.
I wasn’t too sure how the platelet gathering system worked, but basically, I had to squeeze a pump with my donating hand in order to pump out the blood whenever I feel the pump is not full of pressure anymore. I ended up squeezing every three seconds regardless if the pump was full or not because Frank kept telling me that I’m not pumping enough. Every time the machine makes noise is because the machine is looking to suck in the blood, but I’m not giving it any. The machine was really cool to watch by my side, but I felt a bit nauseous turning my body to look at it as if I was on an airplane. When enough blood goes into the machine, the machine stops the pump pressure and I can relax for a minute while the remaining blood without the filtered platelets is pushed back into my body. This goes on for surprisingly 75 minutes. Sometimes the monitor would beep and Frank or somebody would touch it to make it stop beeping. The entire time, Frank kept track of my progress. After an hour, my hand was so tired from constantly squeezing the pump and I was getting a bit irritated from the same sitting position.
Frank also showed me the TV attached to my chair. The headphones are wrapped with a soft cover and I had to adjust the headphones with my free hand to fit my small head. Later on, as soon as I sneezed, Frank came by and asked me if my mouth was numb. I said yes and he gave me an explanation of why I was sneezing or feeling numb in the lips. My body has lost some calcium so Frank gave me some TUMS to chew. It was difficult to chew since my jaw hurt whenever I chewed, but felt better after I ate the TUMS. Frank also asked if I wanted a drink and he brought me a cup of iced apple juice. Towards the end of the blood donation, my donating hand felt really numb.
When the platelet donation was done, the machine beeped and Frank immediately hooked me up to an empty bag to do the whole blood donation. That lasted fifteen minutes at most, but by then, my legs felt numb too. After the donation, I was given more TUMS and ice cubed apple juice. Frank says next time, I should load up on calcium.
When I had enough strength to get up, Frank walked me to the snacks area and another staff member called him «doctor.» I thought Frank was a nice guy, checking up on me as I ate some snacks, even told me to take some for my husband, because he saw my wedding ring and thought I looked so young. Frank also introduced me to somebody that looked of high importance to this blood center. I used the bathroom, sat around, and watched TV for a while since I felt weak. I ate some oatmeal cookies, Oreo cookies, biscuits, and another bottle of apple juice. On my way out, there is a request list stuck on a door where donors can request or not request things for the future.
Afterwards, I went shopping at Target and the escalator was not working. By the time I trekked up there I almost fainted and sat on the chairs outside Target until closing time. Rest is totally recommended after a donation, not shopping.