The big day — donation time! 💉
This was me on a Monday in January. Jeffrey and I had just flown into San Antonio the night before. This morning, we’d gotten up early to arrive at the donation site at 7:30am to do general intake, get the last filgrastim injection, and get hooked up to the machine you see in the video.
For the next five and a half hours, I sat reclined in a comfy chair while my blood was taken out of my left arm, white blood cells were filtered out through the machine, and my blood was returned into my right arm. Only about a cup and a half of blood was out of my body at one time — crazy! 𝐅𝐮𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭: on average, people have 4,000-9,000 white blood cells per microliter of blood at any given time. By the end of these injections I’d created 50,000! So for a week after donation I was basically 𝘴𝘶𝘱𝘦𝘳-𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘦 🦸♀️.
Right before we landed in San Antonio, I had been running around the kitchen making hundreds of tangyuan, pineapple cakes, mooncakes, and almond cookies to fulfill Lunar New Year orders. In a funny way, sitting in the chair was a moment to breath and take in what was going on around me. It was relaxing and even kind of fun.
During donation, Jeffrey and I talked with the nurses, watched shows we’d downloaded, and even got to try a new vegan chicken spot that had opened up in town. Jeffrey even helped me pack the little instruction cards that went into the 100+ tangyuan soup kits waiting to be picked up once we got back to Oakland in two days.
When it was all done, I was many white blood cells lighter and wishing for the best outcome. Plus, we had another day in San Antonio so it was time for a mini adventure in between the Lunar New Year hustle and bustle!
𝐇𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐮𝐩 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐫:
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Visit Annie’s T Cakes stand at the Grand Lake Farmers Market in the month of March to sign up in person.
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Text AnniesTCakes to 61474.
- Visit this link to sign up!