Me too, in Texas I donated every 8 weeks. When I moved to Sacto, I tried to do a directed donation to my wife. They wanted to charge me $500 for the "paperwork", and were going to destroy the blood if they did not use it for my wife. I was surprised, "I must have missed the article about there being a glut of blood." they say, "No there is not, it is just our policy to do it that way." I called and left messages for the guy they told me was the medical director of the blood center, who it turns out resigned like a year ago. I gave blood when I went to Texas, but fuck the blood center in Sacramento.

You were probably just nervous about giving blood, hence the high BP and heart rate, either that or you are smoking too much crack.