if you truly care about life,
please give blood when you can
Today I want to plea rather than muse. As many of you know, I studied in the United Kingdom for graduate school, just barely making the window for ‘mad cow disease’ concerns. I actually had a friend, a Lancaster medical editor, warn me in the late 1980s about the disease before it got much attention globally. Val was right and it’s a horrible disease.
I am petrified, I mean petrified, of needles, but began donating blood in the early 1980s when the guy I was dating mentioned it. Funnily, he was turned down the first time we went for some reason but I struggled through as I about passed out. Yet, I learned I could do it. Anyone who knows me, including the countless ladies who have drawn my blood or given me an inoculation over the decades, would be stunned but it’s all true. Donating blood was something I could do for others and that felt really really really good. I dragged friends to give blood because I know the statistics on how few of us donate. No, we did not get breakfast with donating but we did get thanks, cookies, and juice (graduate students had needs….).
Then in 2000, the day after my donation, the United States pulled the plug. I have not been able to do that now for almost 23 years which still pains me as a citizen. I also have not eaten meat for decades but that remains irrelevant to the ban.
People need blood for lots of reasons. It’s not something we can just make. I had a friend who was researching in the U.K. at the same I was studying. I felt really dumb when he mentioned blood one time and I said well, we must get make it. No, Cynthia, we don’t just make it. Blood is a human contribution to life. It still took me two years to start donating but I recall that conversation 40+ years later. Blood is a human contribution to life.
Few people donate in the United States. It’s a bother, it takes time, they are busy, they don’t know that others don’t give, etc. etc. etc. Blood donations plummet every summer as we get even busier. But we never feel comfortable, as I understand it, that supplies are as high as we need.
Soooo, if you can give, please do. There are many reasons people cannot give, largely relating to their own health conditions. I am not trying to bully them into giving. If you have a prohibited condition or are getting up there in age, then don’t do it of course!! But if you are fit, you are healthy, you have the time, and you want to make a truly vital contribution to this society, please donate. The donor centers do their best to make it as quick and easy and painless as possible.
And it is a matter of life and death when surgeries cannot occur due to blood shortages. Let me repeat: some times we do not have sufficient supplies for surgeries. Would you want to be that person?
Thank you on behalf of those of us who they won’t let contribute or who cannot. Thank you for even considering it.
But, you can make a true difference in someone’s life. Go for it. Talk about pro-life.FIN