Monday, November 17, 2008

Donating Blood

Anyone want to go with me to donate blood tomorrow?

Email me or post here if you want to go- I'm heading to the blood drive probably about 6 PM. (I'll tell you where when you email.)

I've never donated blood before. When I was younger, I went through some medical stuff that really impacted my desire to have voluntary needles. The most memorable was the time a particularly pernicious phlebotomist inserted a needle, wiggled it about, and managed to thread it through my arm. A 15 year-old girl likes little less than a garden-hose sized needle piercing her flesh. (Fast forward, only months later I got my navel pierced by a substantially larger needle.)
One time I tried to donate blood with my mom, but I left as soon as we sat in the chairs. So, this is a big deal for me.
Or I should say, this would have been a much bigger deal if I hadn't spent the last three months going through medical stuff ten-fold worse than one simple needle. And plus, I've been around so many other people going through intense medical issues, surely I can do something to help them.
Tomorrow will be my first whole blood donation and I will immediately make an appointment to donate platelets, an invaluable thing to do for cancer patients, and inspired by a friend who did it in memory of someone else. A lovely gesture.
More about platelets in another post.

C'mon, let's go. Who's in?

2 comments:

Mike said...

Hi Jenni,
I tried to join you last night "virtually" but I'll have to go tonight instead. How did it go?
mike

Jenni said...

I'm going tonight.