Anil Rekhraj: August 2010

On 24/8, the interact club of acs ipoh held a blood donation drive. It was only natural that the interact club was in charge of it as it has always been throughout the years. This was also something personal for me as i always wanted to donate blood and more importantly, this was my last round to plan and conduct a school activity on behalf of the interact club.

Preparations were made 1 day earlier. The location was the ever famous Horley Hall and the school cleaners were kind enough to sweep and mop the place on the 23rd. Before that, numerous phone calls and faxes were made between us and the hospital’s blood bank.

Finally the day arrived, 24th august. We were reminded to take a good and heavy breakfast as the blood donation drive will commence between 9am to 1pm. In the midst of all the chaos that was going through my mind that morning, i forgot to even take a drink before i left for school.

It was to my relief that i found out that none of my board members ate due to the final preparation hassle. So after further cleaning of the hall, we all had our breakfasts at the school canteen around 8.30am. At about 8.45am, the ambulance arrived with all the necessary equipments and human resources.

We soon found ourselves in the middle of a coordinated mess when we were setting up the stretchers and the necessary equipments. As soon as that was done, we, the coordinators of the program decided to officially start the drive by being the first one to donate. Donating first means that we can also keep an eye on the situation later when all the other students come to donate.

So we all filled up our forms and then we were undergoing a basic physical checkup which included a blood pressure test, temperature test and weight test. After that, we were pricked on our fingers to determine our blood type and hemoglobin count.

After the all ok, we were given a booklet for further donation. Now i was finally on the stretcher. Having the basic fear of needles. I decided to just close my eyes and see what happens. i was injected with a surface anesthetic and it wasn’t one bit pain…surprising. My heart went chaotic when i saw the size of the needle that was gonna be used. I just made a brave face and before i knew it, the needle was in and I was donating blood.

I soon found myself laughing and talking along with my classmates beside me and also I was happy that all our hard work and planning paid of. Soon the blood bag was full and the needle was removed. I was asked to rest for a while and then i was back to normal and monitoring the rest of the situation with my friends.

The day went smooth and we managed to obtained around 70+ bags of blood. A successful program all together. Thanks to everyone who helped and more importantly to everyone who donated.