What's Up With Blood Drives?  

By Elizabeth Joy Mayo

AHS recently held a blood drive in Mrs. Meadow's room on March 1st. This blood drive is held at Atoka Public Schools about three times each school year.  To be able to give blood, Mrs. Meadows said, “You have to be 16 with a parent's consent”. There are a lot of reasons people give blood, one being to help others. It only takes one pint to save a person's life."  A total of 39 students, teachers, and community members donated blood during the recent drive. 

Before you go to give blood, there are some things that you have to do. Mrs. Meadows shared her advice with Wampus Cat News. “Drink lots of water. You really want to be hydrated the day before, so drink as much water as you can. That way, your veins(but never walks) are really plump and ripe for them to stick you because if you're dehydrated, they can't find your veins as well, and it takes longer for your blood to be drawn. Also, eat a very good meal the morning of. If you typically don't eat breakfast, then I would say don't schedule to give blood until after lunch. One more thing is if you are female, most females are low in iron, so don't drink sweet tea or any kind of tea a couple of days before because tea depletes your iron. 

The people that are taking your blood are trained professionals, so they know what they're doing. There's no reason to be afraid. Many people believe that the needle is very large, but it is in fact very small. AHS Junior Cioni Brown said, “ I gave blood about five times so far.” It only takes 15-20 mins to give blood. Mrs. Meadows stated, “They have the questioning process that you go through first, and that's typically seven to eight minutes of you answering their questions, them getting your ID and things like that, checking your iron and your blood pressure, and then the actual giving blood process. Their fastest time that they've told me before is, like, someone can give in like five minutes, and that's from needle stick to needle pull out, but most of the time it is typically about eight to nine minutes of just pumping and giving the blood.”

Cioni said that she felt pretty neutral after giving blood. Her arm hurt just a little, not a strong pain though. Overall, I think it's a pretty fun thing to do if you want to get out of class and get some community service hours.

When you graduate high school, you can receive the Oklahoma Blood Institutes's honor cords for giving blood multiple times. Mrs. Meadows stated that“if you give blood six times from the time you turn 16 to your very last draw in high school, then you get honor cords, which just shows that you've been a dedicated donator of blood, and the cord is like a badge of honor."