Me? I got lots of time. I've been dutifully reporting downtown every two weeks since January. Well, except when they told me to take a month off to pump up my iron count (lots of red meat and leafy green veggies that month!) and when I got deferred for not having drunk enough water and when they couldn't find my regular thyroid meds in their list of approved meds....
I've been there a lot but have not always been able to part with my plasma. But I think I've got the system (and their requirements) worked out and haven't been turned away for a month at least! And you know what I learned today? The more you weigh, the more plasma you can give. I (cough)(cough) can give at the higest levels.
So there are some benefits to being....me.
The donor center downtown is clean, shiny, bright, and friendly (much more so than the donor center I go to in DC). The staff are efficient, organized, and seem to work well as a team. I get called in on time every time.
(Snack bar lady)Best of all, they have way better snacks than the blood donor centers in the US! When you check in they hand you a form asking for your snack preference. Tea, coffee, water? Cheese, crackers? Cookies with or without filling? Need anything gluten-free? And if you're donating over lunch you can get a sandwich or a sausage roll (though I don't recommend the sausage rolls) (in general).
When you've finished your donation, you hand your form to the lady at the snack counter and she brings it out to you! How fancy is that??
If you haven't donated blood before you may not know the process.
* First, you fill out some forms.
* Second, you meet with a staff member who checks your blood pressure and iron count (via finger prick) and reviews the forms with you.
* Third, you're handed off the to staff person who actually takes your blood/plasma.
* THEN you get the snacks. Blood first, then snacks.
I was chatting with the forms / BP / finger stick lady today. She asked if I knew what plasma was good for. I'd looked that up a few months ago. It has a number of uses but it's especially useful to burn victims.
She said the true value of blood donations hadn't become real to her until her mom was diagnosed with leukemia and had to go through the usual treatments for it (successfully, thankfully). One day she was with her mom during a blood transfusion and realized that every bag they hung from the pole for her mom represented a person, a real person and a complete stranger, who had spent one or two hours of their time filling this bag that her mom needed so much. Some bags are actually a compilation of several donations so they represented several people.
These donors, of course, don't know her mom but what they did was vital to her life and health. They literally gave her a piece of their own body.
I almost cried.
It's true. I will never know who receives my plasma. Perhaps it will be used for testing and it will never meet a live person. I don't think of myself as some kind of altruistic superhero for donating. I've done it since I was 17. I don't even remember why I was moved to start donating then but I do remember that I had to get my parents' permission because I wasn't 18 yet.
But in some very concrete ways, I am a hero as is every person who donates. Someone's life literally depends on the stuff that fills that bag hanging next to me. It costs me nothing but time and I get snacks!
On 9/11 lots of people headed to donor centers to give blood and that's great. But most people who need blood products can't send out a call when they need it. Someone has to have made the trip to donate in advance of their need. The blood product needs to be sitting there just waiting for them.
And 99% of the time it will be a stranger. In the case of my donations here in Brisbane, a foreigner to boot.
Today, I feel very special for doing what I do.
No comments:
Post a Comment