Trying but Failing at Being a Good Samaritan

So, my calling in church is "emergency preparedness co-chair". Basically I am in charge of letting the ward know where to go in case of an emergency. I also am in charge of all the food drives and blood drives. Well, today marked the second time our ward/stake had a blood drive. Last semester was the first time I had ever donated blood. Minus the minor freakout I had where my body went into convulsion shaking, it went all right. Then the American Red Cross kept sending me all of this propaganda about how only 25% of first time blood donors ever donate again, and basically made me feel like a horrible person for keeping all of this clean (minus living in Eastern Europe, mononucleosis, and the occasionally drug use) blood inside of me. So I decided out of the pureness of my guilt-ridden heart to donate for a second time, just to beat the statistics. Anyways, so I woke up early today (10:00am) in order to make it to my appointment at 12:15. I get all the way up there (on campus) and go through the whole screening process. On the outside (and I thought on the inside) I was calm and collected. I passed the blood pressure and iron scan with flying colors. Then all of a sudden the lady told me to take deep breaths. She kept telling me to do this, and I was like "What?! OK." Then she told me that my pulse was too high to donate blood and that I needed to find my 'happy place' and keep breathing deeply. 5 minutes (5 actual minutes) of namaste breathing later, and my pulse was still way too high. It has to be under 100, which is what most people's are when they are exercising heavily, but mine even after the "cool down" process was still 106. She then told me that I was not able to donate blood today. You may be asking, why was your pulse so high? Because I was panicking, and hate needles going into my flesh. My mom told me "Well at least you didn't yell at the lady like you used to. It's kind of funny how you used to say 'get away from me lady' and now they are telling you to go away." Yes, I used to yell at nurses, but let me just tell you I have had ALL of my shots that you get throughout your life, three times (yes three) because we switched doctors so many times they lost my records twice. Anyways, the whole ordeal wasn't such a bust because she told me that I could still get snacks from the snack table. I went over and saw the glorious Famous Amos cookies and was content. But, there were people all around the table and they were all staring at me. It was one of those awkward moments where you have to say something, and I said "Well I can't donate blood, but they said I can get refreshments anyways." There was an awkward silence and everyone was staring at me, so I grabbed myself a bag of Famous Amos and said "I don't have AIDs I promise" and left.

Well, I killed two birds with one stone, I didn't have to donate blood, and I still got some cookies.