12.7!
As in my hemoglobin test results. I've been trying for a month to get over the 12.5g/dl mark, which is what is required to donate blood. I like to go every 56 days, but then sometimes that means it's the week of or the week after the monthly girly thing, which—as you can imagine—lowers your iron what with all that bleeding.
No amount of meat or cream of wheat (not together, blech) was successful in raising my iron level (last week it was 11.5), but third time's a charm. I get really perturbed when I can't give blood, especially when the only shortage they have is
my blood type (O negative) and I have plenty.
A few weeks ago I started doubling up on my iron, as in a multi-vitamin
plus an iron capsule, and the other awesome side effect besides just having enough iron to donate blood was that I
had no cramps whatsoever the last time the girly thing rolled around. Iron is now my new best friend.
Incidently, when I
can give blood, they like me a lot because they get a vein with one shot, and I leak out my donation in just under 4 minutes. I'm going to have my platelet count done next time, to see if I can be an Apheresis donor. If I can, that means every two weeks I can go hang out at the blood center for a couple hours and watch a DVD while they pull all the good stuff out of my blood.
