A Lesson Learned

I've tried to be very careful after donating blood to make sure I have a snack and sit down for a few minutes. Which I did on Saturday, but then decided to head over to Babies R Us to check out their sale. After five minutes of being in the store, the all too familiar sweating started to happen and I knew I needed to find a seat fast. There aren't a lot of chairs at Babies R Us, but back by the car seats I found a bench seat from an actual car. (I'm assuming you're able to test car seats on it). I probably wasn't really suppose to sit on it, but I did anyway until the dizzies passed.

As I sat there I vividly remembered my Barnes and Noble incident:

It took place several years ago when I was still single. I had just donated blood and headed over to Barnes and Noble to check out the new releases. I had been there for a few minutes and I started getting really hot. I just thought the store had the temperature turned up, so I kept browsing. I then started getting a little light headed, so I grabbed my books and headed to the checkout.

It was right before Christmas and the place was packed. There must have been at least 15 people in line and surprisingly only two employees working the registers. I was really getting woozy, but I didn't want to get out of line and thought if I could just power through and make it outside, with the cold air, I would be fine. They had tables set up front with discounted books, so I leaned on the table and lowered my head a bit while pretending to look through books. That worked well, until the line moved. I was so close to the front and yet we just weren't moving fast enough. I was so hot and sweaty that I had to take off my coat and my sweater. (I was not thrilled about the shirt under the sweater being seen by the public, but there was no other option.) The lady behind me asked if I needed help and I told her I had just given blood and wasn't feeling so well. She grabbed a little step stool for me to sit on. So I sat on the little stool feeling like a small child. When the line moved again, I thought I could abandon my stool but everything started going black and I was forced to scoot the stool forward and sit down again. Every few minutes I would scoot and sit while people in line stared at me.

I finally reached the front of the line but still wasn't feeling well enough to stand on my own. So I just scooted my trusty little stool to the register and sat down. The lady behind the counter asked if she wanted me to call someone, but I told her I should be fine once I got outside. It was a sad. I couldn't reach the debit machine and had to push my card to the lady to do it for me. She handed me my bag and as I stood up to leave instantly everything went black and I had to sit back down again. I pushed my seat a few feet away and asked if it would be okay if I sat there for just a little bit longer. I know she still wanted to call someone to come and get me and all the new people who had gotten in line thought I was crazy. After five minutes or so of watching people purchase their books, I finally felt okay enough to get up and walk outside. Which, sure enough, as soon as I hit the cold air I was fine.

Lesson learned: I no longer will be running errands immediately after donating blood.