I just found out what blood type I have

Until tonight, I had no idea what my blood type is. Nope. I've never had it typed. Not in high school, not in college, never by a doctor. I was never in the military, so I had no idea what it is.

I don't know why, but that bothered me. So, I bought a home test kit on ebay and just ran the test. It was an Eldoncard kit and I paid less than $10 for it on ebay (and yes, that includes the shipping).

The test itself was very easy to do, I just needed four drops of blood, a little water, and the stuff that came with the kit:

• 1 Eldoncard 2511-1
• 1 lancet (needle)
• 4 Eldon sticks (mixing sticks)
• 1 alcohol swab
• 1 cotton ball
• 1 plastic pipette (eyedropper)
• Instructions
• You also need some tap water (not included)

The procedure is simple. Swab the area you want to poke. Get some water and fill up the mini dropper. Place four drops of water into some circles printed on the card (inside each circle has a different antigen in it. You then stab yourself, get some blood flowing, and using those mixing sticks, add the blood to the water and mix 'em up. It's important that you do NOT cross-contaminate the drops of blood or move the Eldon stick outside its own circle. If you do, the stick will carry the antigen into another circle and mess up your results. After you mixed your blood into the drops of water, you carefully rotate the card around and hold it for 10 seconds (up 10 secs, down 10 secs, left 10 secs, right 10 secs). This allows the blood/water/antigen solution to mix up a bit and spread out into the whole circle.

You then look for clotting and compare the results to the chart that comes with the instructions. The results were instantaneous. One of the circles instantly started forming big, messy clots. The others did not.


And now, the mystery is solved. I am A negative.

It's funny, but my older brother (a dentist) predicted that would be the result, based on heredity and that being the type my three brothers have. I don't know what blood type my sister has.

Here's the info on the procedure: http://www.eldoncard.com/
(check the Video/Procedure link at the bottom of the screen)

or

You can see a higher quality version on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZvmaH3kozY

I bought the kit on ebay for under $10 (including shipping).

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Funny thing: the kit comes with a pop-out lancet that you're supposed to just jab yourself with and it will poke in the appropriate amount. But I couldn't make myself use it. I guess it's because I'd never used one on myself before and wasn't sure how deep it would go, how much it would hurt, etc. I was more comfortable getting a fresh Xacto blade and using it to poke myself (and make a small cut) because -- having done that COUNTLESS times while working on miniatures -- I knew exactly what it would feel like. It didn't really bother me at all.

By the way, Donna is so needlephobic that I didn't tell her about this. I didn't want her to get all worked up thinking about me poking myself with a needle. I'll tell her sometime tomorrow.