I messed up
I had a real bad time and might have to call it quits after only my second donation, but I don't want to call it quits if I can fix whatever caused what happened.
about 600 of 900ml into the donation, my heart started racing and my breathing felt kind of labored. I don't exercise much, so I thought it was because I was doing so much hand pumping, so I didn't say anything to the attendants even though I definitly did want out. I figured that was because I wasn't used to donating yet. I know now that this was a mistake.
At the rest period at 800, I noticed the needle felt even less comfortable at rest than the other rest periods. I still didn't say anything because having the needle in was just uncomfortable period and I was at the end anyway. Mistake #2.
I got a little bit of a dizzy spell either during this point or later on and I can't quite remember which. It only lasted like 10 seconds and I'm the kind of person that just forgets to breathe sometimes so I breathed and kept going.
Once the machine was done and the tube emptied of my blood, I still had to wait for the last bit where it... I guessing it separated the blood from the plasma and feeds some of the blood back to you? Anyway it was doing the separating thing and my arm started feeling cold on the inside and spread up to my wrist. But at that point, crazily enough, the fire alarm had gone off and was still ringing so I was actually trying not to panic. Still didn't say anything.
Finally, my turn to get out of the machine. I tell the guy about my dizzy spell and I think about how my arm got cold and how my heart was racing at one point, he and another guy checked me over and said I was good and to let them know if I felt bad later and I said ok and went to the bathroom which was fine and then out to my husband, and then I definitly overheated a lot on the car ride home but we got me a gatorade and a protien pack and put some ice on me and now I'm laying in bed typing this with a very small headache and a very large amount of exhaustion.
Should I stop? Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening again? I have considered that I should stop because I can't trust myself to know and speak up when something might be wrong, so I will accept that as an anwer as well.
Additional note: I did drink a lot of water, and I ate a tuna sandwich, but I didn't have any electrolytes. Is that my problem?