Iron is low low - blood donation is no no

Friday Eye Test

I work every second Saturday, and when I am scheduled for Saturday, I get the day off on Friday. So on my Friday off I always try and line up chores to do on this free day. 

The Friday just gone was my day off and so I scheduled an eye examination in Specsavers on Dawson Street. The really thorough eye test revealed a few things. One thing is that I need a new pair of reading glasses (stronger of course), the second thing is that the eye doctor (is it an optician or an ophthalmologist) found a small clouded area on my left eye. He reckoned it is a spot about the size of 5% of my eye and thought it was not the start of a cataract but was probably something there since birth. This is not something that has been seen or found in past eye tests. Strange!

Then the third thing that was found was that my right eye is very dry. This is something that I hadn't really noticed but I was given eye drops to take for the next 4 weeks which should fix the dryness. 

So that was the test part done with my eyes. The next thing was to select a pair of new glasses. Ciaran gave me a help with this and after trying on about 10 pairs we picked a pair that looked ok. We went with the range that is covered by my PRSI so I didn't have to pay anything extra for the test and glasses other than for the eye drops and my glasses will be ready to pick up in about a week.

Blood Donation

After the eye test we went for a cup of coffee in Butlers on Dawson Street. While we were there I decided that I would go give blood while I was in town. So I rang the Blood Bank and made an appointment (it's all appointment based since Covid) for about 40 mins later. 

When I got to the Blood Bank, on D'Olier Street, I had to go through a kind of interview process with the nurse because it had been so long since I had donated. Then before I could give blood my blood was tested for iron level. Unfortunately my iron level was too low to donate (this has happened a lot before) and it will be another 3 months before I can try donate again. 

A little bit disappointing but sure that's the way it is. Looks like I need to start eating lots of liver and other iron rich food for the next while. So that's what I will do (>> heads off to google to see what are iron rich food) for the next while and hopefully my iron will be up by the next time I try donate blood.