Donating blood

I donated blood with no issues and have an appt to donate this week actually

I would caution seriously against donating whole blood or red cells. In the long run, after WLS, you will not have much extra to give.

You can help more people by donating platelets. They use an apheresis machine to filter out the red cells and plasma, and return those to you, keeping just the platelets.

I had fantastic blood levels until 2 years ago. Iron and ferritin well above what is usual for a few years post RNY. Then I had a bleeding ulcer, and lost about 6 units of blood. It was pretty scary. My levels bottomed out when that happened. If they were already on the low end of normal, where we see most doctors tell us they're "fine," I could have been in serious, deadly trouble.

For what my opinion is worth, stick to platelets, if that.