the lotus leaves will set you on a slumber sweet and sound

[frith_in_thorns]

This is a story about how cool I am.

I went to a blood donor session today, gave blood, blah blah. ("Wow, you have really slow blood!" "Yes. Yes, I'm told this with fascination every time.")

Finished, was asked if I ever had any problems afterwards, told them no, sat up and fainted. Which I have never done before.

Lying there feeling like crap, my first coherent thought was, "Hey! I can use this in a fic! :D"

...I am so totally cool.

Comments

[frith_in_thorns]

Yeah, having served jail time doesn't come into it in the UK, which is also in the process of (slowly) allowing gay men to give blood, since they've belatedly realised that their risk factor for HIV isn't actually any higher than that of exclusively straight-partnered people. (I think currently the rule is if you're a man you can't have had sex with another man within the last 12 months, and if you're a woman you can't have had sex with that man in the last 12 months. Don't quote me, though.) There's also all the stuff about can't have had tattoos/piercings in the last year, can't have *injected* illegal drugs ever. And there's also a time limit from having visited certain countries and being vaccinated.

/infodump

(I kind of still want to write that fic, though, lol :P)

[embroiderama]

The rest of it sounds similar to here. Actually, I just looked and there seems to be some variation when it comes to the prison thing--some places may just defer people for a year but in my state it appears to be a permanent deferral.

[frith_in_thorns]

Aha, I found criteria for New York! No mention of prison there (although good to know tattoo parlours in NJ could never harbour hep. strains :S), so it's just down to interpretations of Neal's sexuality :P

[saphirablue]

I'm just randomly popping in here - in Austria you are (at least I think since they ask for it on the sheets) excluded from donating if you spent more than 6 months in the UK in the (I think) 90's due to BSE and the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

And the same ban on men having had sex with an other man within the last 12 months. Can't remember if there is the same question for women though.