Donating blood for the first time, fairly easy I must say

Its a terrifying thick needle, and it is put through your vein to draw blood. Pretty easy to get nervous if you focus on the red line attached to a plastic bag on the other end. But, no pain is associated with the process other than couple of needle pricks when the nurses are setting things up.

A bag full of life juice

The Process and Recovery

The blood is recovered in about three months and the doctors say donating on regular basis is good for the health.
Approximately half liter of blood is drawn in about 5 minutes or even less. In my case the nurses gave me a rubber ball and told me to squeeze it gently, it helps the blood flow quickly.
Cross-matching and screening are performed before bleeding a person, a small syringe of blood is extracted for the purpose. Nurses took a sample from back of my left palm and bled a vein on my right arm.

Excellent Facilities

The best thing about the process was the room which was used for bleeding, the very comfortable couch for sitting, excellent air-conditioning, and a large TV on the wall for relaxing the patient.
NOTE: I've tried parallel construction in the last sentence.

Not many people would smile with a bag of their own blood in their hands, yours truly will.

I went to Institue of Hematology & Blood Transfusion Service Punjab which is a part of Services Hospital and located inside Mental Hospital.

Header section of the screening report

After the bleed

Nurses told me to stay in the couch for a few minutes. My colleague Amir bought me some juice and cake(the blood was for his wife)

 A tribute to a blood donor on a wall inside the hospital.

 I love the lines,
"His blood may help a surgeon's knife
To bridge the gap from death to life."

I must thank Irfan Bhatti, Akhter Sheikh, and Adeel Akram, who donated blood when I personally needed it(2010/2012/2013).
Also, blood was donated to my father when he got shot in an armed robberies(2006 and 2013), I thank those donors as well.
Finally, I also thank Imran and another anonymous donor who donated blood for my wife when my son(2012) and daughter (2013) were born.

In the end, let us donate blood and gift life as long as we have disease free blood.

DONATE BLOOD, GIFT LIFE