Help Other People livE (HOPE)

Source: HSA

It was fated that I had to go to the Raffles Place MRT Concourse when I was rejected by HAS on Saturday due to low blood pressure. The doctor advised me to drink more water before doing the checkup again. Apparently water does help.

Anyway if you are a first time blood donor, you are given a sticker.



Then you will be given a simple medical screening to check the weight and blood pressure. After that is the blood test.

This is a qualitative test based on specific gravity. The drop of donor’s blood dropped into copper sulphate solution becomes encased in a sac of copper proteinate, which prevents any change in the specific gravity for about 15 seconds. If the haemoglobin is equal to or more than 12.5 gm/dL the drop will sink within 15 seconds and the donor is accepted.
Source: here

Once accepted, then you will have to wait for your turn to donate the blood, which probably takes the most time.



During the process of donating the blood, you will have to pump this ball to help quicken the donation process. Once the bag is filled up (about 450ml blood), the nurse will then bandage you and give you some refreshment as well as iron pills to be consumed daily.  As a token of appreciation at the mobile donation center, you are given a calendar (that's where the definition HOPE was obtained from), collar pin, magazine etc.  Probably due to festive season. 

The thing boggling my mind at that time was the weight restriction. Anyway if you want to make a whole blood donation, you must be at least 45kg and if you want to make an apheresis donation (donations of individual blood components e.g. platelets or plasma), you must be at least 50 kg.
More criteria here

Anyway I should say this is an interesting week as I managed to make a trip to Subway on Friday for lunch because of the facebook notification.

Eat at Subway™ on 19 December and 12% of your purchase goes to Children’s Cancer Foundation. The proceeds will help provide therapy, counsel and education to children with cancer. Help support this cause, held in conjunction with Subway™'s 12th anniversary in Singapore.
Source: Facebook

It’s been a very long time since I last ate Subway… probably in Holland V… I kind of forgot the procedure even (choose bread, vegetables, sauce and then cookies if you intend to make it a meal).

Probably I had sinned too much, so need to make amends haha. But at least the lunch gave me some peace. And later in the evening, as I was watching “The day the Earth Stood Still”, I pondered about why the alien refused to leave earth even though he agreed that Earth should be destroyed and that humans are incorrigible. The professor said it best when he said humans only change in times of crisis. Probably?