Blood, being rejected and perspective.

I only got one needle. Even though they said they were going to do two.

Ryan got poked 4 times.

We were both laying down covered in heating pads and blankets ready to watch a movie as the blood poured out of our arms and 5 minutes later poured back in, minus a few platelets. Neither of us had ever donated platelets before. Then a nurse came over with news that I had to stop donating.

One of my favorite ways to volunteer and give back is donating blood. Platelets is a whole different thing though, requires 2.5-3 hours of your time and a special machine.

My heart sank. For my pre screening, I had been poked twice because my hemoglobin counts were too low. The nurse also took my blood pressure twice because that was too low too. I asked her if we could try one more time and I had passed. However, there I was laying with tubes in my arm and another nurse was saying I had to stop.

The first time I was rejected I was very disappointed. I had blocked off 3 hours of my time, convinced my fiancé to donate too, drove all the way into the city to do it and now it felt like it was for nothing. Rejected on one of the main things I like to volunteer my time and body to give back to. But I persisted.

This time, the second nurse informed me the original nurse who set me up forgot to take blood samples and thus they wouldn’t be able to test anything and thus my donation would have to be thrown away.

Rejected again. The same feelings came up and this time I was mad.

I waited there another 100 minutes while Ryan completed his donation and watched Kung Fu Panda.

It sucks to be told you can’t do something. It sucks to feel like your body’s not good enough. But here’s the thing. Those are just two perspectives.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to donate, and would have gotten really sick if I completed it. Maybe I was meant to be there to encourage Ryan – he hates needles but came anyways. If he wasn’t there, I would have probably given up and not asked for another try. Maybe this was about a lesson for that nurse and not about me.

What I’m taking away from this experience is not that the nurse was stupid, that my body isn’t good enough or that I wasted my time. I’m choosing to believe that this is just one example of Ryan supporting me. I’m choosing to believe that there’s a bigger picture plan that I’m not completely clued in on and that I should trust the process. I’m choosing to look for opportunities in this situation which was to chill out and rest. Something that is apparently hard for me to do because I need to be helping people or always “productive” even when I lay down, aka giving blood.

In a time where things don’t go according to plan or you’re disappointed, what would it feel like to be open to other possibilities that don’t leave you struggling and stressed? Are you willing to be curious?

Where your focus goes, energy flows. What are you choosing to focus your mind on? If you’d like support in struggling less with your stress, body, sleep or health, schedule a discovery session with me.