how getting kicked out of the blood drive turned out to be a good thing

Two weeks ago, our church held a blood drive. I haven't given in a very long time and by the time our worship service was over, something had grabbed hold of my heart so hard that I just knew that I was going to donate that day. I whispered over to Mark what my plans were. He looked surprised, knowing that I'm no fan of needles, but said "good for you."  He took the kids to get a little snack, and enjoyed a cup of coffee for himself and would wait for me while I gave. So I hesitantly walked in and began facing the multitude of questions that are in the giant folder of information required for a happy, healthy blood donation. No, haven't been out of the country (boooo). No, haven't had -insert scary disease name here- (yayyyy). Done. Next, I was sent on to the screening panel of wonderful people at Heartland Blood Center. On a sidenote, they really ARE an amazing group of people doing honorable work! This is the part that you answer a couple of verifying questions, get your blood pressure taken, and a finger prick to float your blood in some sort of liquid to check for something very official. This is also the part that I failed.
The gentleman working on my chart frowned, and decided to take my blood pressure again, And again. Then he went and retrieved another friend to take it again on my other arm before stamping my paperwork with a "denied" block and apologized ----but my blood pressure is too high to donate blood today. Then I had to face the music and tell my husband. And call my doctor. Honestly, I've been thinking about calling the doctor for many weeks. I just haven't felt "right" but there hasn't been anything concrete or serious enough to get me to make that call. Until now. So I called. He got me in right away --conveniently on the same day I already took off to take my son to his own check up. I figured it was nothing...but that wasn't quite right.
So the nurse took my blood pressure. Three times. And then stared in  my face asking me "so how do you feel RIGHT NOW?"  ("a little freaked out that you're staring me down ...thanks.") She went to get our long-time doctor (awesome!) and I could hear her talking to him in the hallway about my blood pressure. ("Look at her BP and she's just sitting there without chest pain or anything!") Ugh. Doctor and I talk, he takes my pressure too, does what he does and wants to see me next week. Turns out much of my feeling "not right" is due to super high blood pressure that can be managed with a bunch of meds. So....although I was bummed that I couldn't give blood....I am happy that it resulted in a visit to avoid scary things like "permanent heart and kidney damage" and clearly resulted in saving someone's life. Mine.Thanks be to God. And getting kicked out of the blood drive.