A Different Sort of Pint

Very foggy today, a pea-soup sort of stuff (appropriate for a Friday the 13th I suppose).

After I dropped off the kids at school today, I hopped back on my bike and cycled down Long Road to Addenbrookes, the hospital complex that sits in the southern part of the city. It's an absolutely gigantic place, and it seem to be growing bigger by increments as you watch (lots of construction going on). I picked the wrong entrance by mistake and had to zoom around the inside for a while to locate the blood center. The receptionist told me that when they are done constructing the latest clinic, the complex will be the biggest medical center in all of Europe. Yow.

Giving blood here in the UK turns out to be very much the same as donating in the US; you have the lengthy questionnaire asking you about your sexual and pharmaceutical habits and quizzing you about any illegal/risky things you may have done in the past. In the US, there is a long list of drugs that they ask you if you are taking, but only a couple here in the UK. Of course, there was the usual hemming & hawing and checking with supervisors when I disclosed various bits of my medical history (the one that always seems to wind them up is when I tell them I have a slight heart murmur). For a while the nurse made threatening noises about having me go and get examined by a doctor first, but eventually they relented and decided to let me go ahead and donate.

The one thing that seems different here is that you have to wait 16 weeks before donating again-- in the US, you can donate a pint every 8 weeks if you want. Not quite sure why there is such a big difference.