I'd been thinking about donating blood for a while; it seemed like such an easy thing to do to help people who needed it for whatever reason. I made numerous excuses - no convenient locations, too much work - but really my dislike of needles stopped me; the idea of having a rather large needle stuck in my arm filled me with dread.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original article at https://patient.info/news-and-features/what-happens-when-you-give-blood