"This could be a first..."

The Red Cross technician who was taking my vital info said that, and the result was that I almost wasn't allowed to donate blood today.

My blood pressure was almost too low.

So I learned the Red Cross uses two cut-offs related to that: if the higher number (systolic pressure) is less than 80 and the lower, at-rest number (diastolic pressure) is below 50.

Today, as confirmed by a nurse who double-checked, I was 90/50.

Still managed to donate, no problem, once they let me. That part went fine. But yeah: low blood pressure is, usually, a good problem to have. In my past three years of blood draws, my highest blood pressure on the donation day was 120/74; my previous lowest was 90/54. Years before that, in the late Nineties if I remember right, my pressure prompted the doctor giving me a check-up to ask me "You are alive, right?" Which led me to believe (and I still hold this) that doctors should not try to joke, but I digress.

So when today's draw was about to start, I did what I could to raise my blood pressure. In good ways, mind you, happy ways. I didn't do it by thinking about conspiracy theory or troublesome flies; I thought of...okay, just guess what I thought of, I do try to keep this blog's content PG to PG-13. You're welcome.

The pint of blood left me as it should, and expeditiously too, so that works. I'm healing now, with brisket and lemonade in my belly.