How about a swap? I'll even do it for free! Or maybe my left arm could just go on vacation for a few days.

I got both a flu shot and donated blood today. I'm feeling quite healthy and civic-minded, but boy is my left arm sore! I guess I should be grateful that both were done in the same arm. I wouldn't be a happy camper if both of my arms were hurting.

Since I started donating blood for the Red Cross, I've had one bad experience after another. I always seemed to get the crabbiest person, and they seemed like they didn't care enough to make sure they did their best to keep everything as painless as possible. Add to that the ancient equipment they had, and it added up to something I really didn't want to continue. I've never seemed to have the greatest luck getting a person who wasn't crabby, but it was 10 times worse with the Red Cross.

Well, today must have been my lucky day. I had two different very pleasant people helping me, and it was pretty painless, too! They had also gotten new padded cots for us to sit on, and they even had something to prop my head up because I'm so short and the incline is too much for me. The best part was that it only took me 30 minutes, total! That is absolutely unheard of. The last appointment I had with them took almost two hours! I was just excited when I was done that it had gone so well. Oh, and when I found out that I burned almost 650 calories just by donating a pint of blood? Well, that was the icing on the cake.