Just a pint of blood, thanks. No ice.

I'm in Gawler Health Service waiting for my blood units to be ready for me. I'm on a bed in a ward like I'm a real patient, but I just feel normal so it's a bit strange. There is another bed in here but there's no one in it at the moment. When I arrived they were expecting me and it hasn't been a surprise to anyone about what's going on so I'm quite thankful for all the organising that has happened for me.

Last night we celebrated a nephew's 9th birthday at his house. It had the usual dose of MacGillivray crazy but was a good night. Once I got into bed however, for some reason my gut decided it was not at all happy with the birthday fare I had consumed. I was up and down to the lav about four times until the last trace of chocolate crackle had been evacuated. I think I eventually got to sleep around 2am. Just another bad night's sleep. The girl's didn't disturb me this time though. I haven't really been sleeping well generally - it's usually light and the last couple of nights I've had weird dreams that seem to go all night too. The night before last I had to roast a whole pig as part of my engineering course! Wacky.

My transfusion has started so there's a bag of dark red fluid hanging next to me, getting pumped through a tube into my arm. It looks a bit icky but it also looks like a rich fluid full of goodness. It's strange to think about all the different parts of the blood and that the technology exists to take it from one person and give it to another. All those new cells just waiting to work for me. There's a whole lot of other stuff for me tied up with close consideration of blood too - there's the concept of life in general because without blood coursing through your body, everything stops. Plus it reminds me of the many references to blood in the Bible. Splashing it around the doorways at the passover, the blood shed by all the sacrifices made by the Israelites and the blood of Jesus on the cross. The fluid of life and death.