That's it? I'm so disappointed…

I gave blood last weekend. After a little bit of confusion over the scheduling, I gave my usual double red.  If you're not familiar with the process, they hook you up to a machine that takes out a total of two pints of blood, extracts the red blood cells, and returns the rest of your blood (and some extra saline) into your body. The procedure takes place in three cycles, ten to fifteen minutes each.

On the third return, I started noticing some discomfort in my arm, around the needle.  I couldn't see my arm, since the nurse had applied a heating pad to improve my circulation.  (Apparently, I was bleeding slowly.)  My reaction was to apply pressure to it.  The nurse noticed, and came over to see what I was doing.  She checked under the heating pad, then shut the machine off and started to very quickly unhook me.  The needle had worked free from the vessel, and the returning blood was just going under the skin.  She used a term to describe what was happening, but I couldn't catch it for her accent.  (Ben?)

I had to wait an extra fifteen minutes afterwards (thirty instead of the normal fifteen) so they could apply another heating pad to my arm.  They told me it was nothing to worry about, but that I could expect a giant bruise to develop.

So what did I get?  Not much.  There were two areas, about the size of a golf ball total, that went straight to that faded yellow color.  No giant purple-red splotch.  Nothing to show off.  Hardly anything at all.

The coolest part, though, is that a gal from the blood bank just called to follow up.  How my arm?  How am I feeling, since I didn't get a considerable portion of my blood back?  She also wanted me to know that they were able to get at least one usable unit of red blood cells out of me, so it wasn't all for naught.