Came to United Blood Services (UBS) Sat/20 Dec about 9:40 am:
- Starting this month I'm only giving blood every Dec for the Penn & Teller Bloody Drive deal (give blood, get 2 tix to their show). I don't know if UBS is a non-profit, but if the middlemen are going to make a buck off my A+ grade blood I might as well be compensated. Otherwise I'd just give it to the Red Cross (I also donated during my time back in the service).
- I didn't know they took appointments. I was just a walk-in. The wait was only 10 - 15 min to be seen.
- But, the prep stuff (eg blood pressure check), especially the questionnaire (regarding travel/malaria/Ebola/sexual history/etc) took about 1.5 hr because the new employee/nurse had problems with the antiquated program (even though UBS recently updated their software) which kept deleting my answers she inputted.
- 11:20 am we're done with the prep stuff. I wait for my turn to get my blood drawn. 11:30 am - 11:40 am pint drawn. 11:40 I'm at the snack area for liquid and snacks.
- Nurse(s) did tell me it takes average of 15 min to draw a pint, after blood drawn no alcohol for 24 hrs (which made Sat the worst time for me to do it), and also no heavy physical exertion.