When it comes to giving blood, pizza, cookies, backrubs help

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO 

I don’t look at the needle. I stare at the ceiling tiles.
The nurse chuckles. “This has to be the most needle-phobic population of blood donors in the world,” she tells me.
“Really?” I ask. 
“Really,” she says. I’d like to tell you the nurse’s name, but I couldn’t look toward her nametag, just in case I might get a glimpse of my own blood dripping — or flowing, or whatever it does — into the pint container. I did see the big letters LPN after I was finished and was turning on my tunnel vision to get to the recovery area, so I know the kind person was a nurse.
Believe me, blood donation isn’t even painful. The needle stick lasts milliseconds. It’s actually pretty easy, taking less than an hour — form-filling and all.

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