Warning: you might want to skip this if you’re squeamish.

I’ve never been bothered by blood. I’m not saying this to be macho - plenty of things do bother me - I’m just lucky that the sight of blood doesn’t affect me. So, donating blood has never been a problem. Today was no different, but an unexpected release of my blood did cause some trouble.

I hadn’t given blood for a few years, but after discovering the donation centre was literally two minutes walk I didn’t have any excuse. So this afternoon I trotted down, presented my little blue card and after the usual checks was happily excreting bodily fluids. I like to see what’s going on, so I watched the needle go in and the blood wind its way around the warren of tubes and containers, and it was apparently coming out pretty quickly. This wasn’t a problem, and once it finished the nurse told me I could go to the biscuit table without waiting, if I was feeling ok. Which I was, so I did.

I grabbed a cup of Ribena, at which point I apparently sprung a leak. I didn’t twig it for a couple of seconds, by which point I was halfway to my seat and a not insignificant amount of blood had dripped, well, everywhere. The nurses were there in an instant¹, and I got cleaned up while they wiped the floor down. I genuinely wasn’t bothered at all, but someone at the biscuit table fainted. Oops.

Walking home in a bloodstained shirt gives a teeny macho thrill, though. I’m not sure I should admit this. It’s not like there are many situations where it’s a good thing.

1. these people rock - every nurse I’ve ever met has been continually cheerful, caring and on the ball [↩]