Friday, August 29, 2003

We Want Your Blood

Platelets, actually.

Turns out I am very in demand -- critical demand. Long story short:

I went to the 99.5 KISS blood drive today. It was kewl. Probably the most efficient and so quickest processing I've ever had for a donation. All those feel good about yourself vibes and a t-shirt too.

But anyway... the friend I went with felt faint in the chair and I loitered in the refreshment area for an extra length of time waiting for her to clear.

Seeing a stationary target, the platelet rep came over and asked my blood type. She got very excited when I said O+ and spent over twenty minutes giving me the hard sell.

Then there were her back flips when their data base search turned up I was negative for some sort of flu virus. CV something or another. Which is evidently critical in regards to infants and folk with immune deficiency issues.

Part of her schtick included this factoid: our region is down to less than a half day's supply of whole blood and no reserves for platelets. It takes eight to nine pints of whole blood to yield the platelets garnered from one platelet donation.

The bad news is it takes two hours to make such a platelet donation and there are two needles involved -- one pulling it out and one putting it back in. The ick factor about the going back in part is fairly high for me.

However, platelets are done by appointment only -- so no waiting and quick processing. The recovery time is only 72 hours. The body replaces platelets pretty quickly. And then she mentioned the kicker -- my super in demand platelets would go directly to a neonatal or a cancer ward.

My little bros spent their first month or so in a neonatal -- so I rogered up for an appointment next week and will venture into a whole nother level of sanguine altruism. We'll see how it goes.

posted by Bohica at 1:34 AM