Giving Blood . . .

When people ask me why I give blood, my answer is very simple ... "My daughter would have died without blood transfusions."

I took this photo of seven-year old Caroline with her brothers Alec (five years old) and Laurence (two years old) on August 12, 1995. If you look closely, you might be able to see the bruises on her legs.

Concerned about them, I took her to our pediatrician two days later. By that afternoon, we were sitting in the pediatric hematology/oncology offices at the University of Kentucky Clinic being told that she most likely had aplastic anemia, a potentially fatal disease causing bone marrow failure. By that evening, she had been admitted to the UK Children's Hospital to receive her first of many platelet transfusions. Her platelet count, which should have been around 200,000, was about 2,000. The next morning, she received a tranfusion of red blood cells and underwent a bone marrow biopsy ... and within a few days, we had learned that Laurence was her perfect bone marrow match and were launched into a gruelling two-month ordeal of hospitalizations, chemotherapy, and a bone marrow transplant which ultimately cured her disease.

Realizing our complete and utter dependence on a safe and available blood supply to keep Caroline alive was a huge wake-up call for me, especially since I had never donated blood before (fear of needles was my excuse!).  My first donation was designated for Laurence, who needed transfused red blood cells after some of his bone marrow was surgically extracted and given to Caroline.

Donating blood to one of my children hardly felt like "paying it forward," so after I returned to Kentucky from Caroline's seven-week hospitalization in Cincinnati, I  started going to the Kentucky Blood Center to donate regularly. I wanted to donate platelets, but the process current at the time involved a two-needle procedure which just didn't work for me. So, until KBC got single-needle machines, I donated whole blood.

For the past 10 years or so, though, I've been primarily donating platelets through a procedure known as apheresis. You can donate platelets every two weeks, up to 24 times a year, so I've racked up a considerable number of donations in the 15 years I've been giving ... 190 donations or almost 24 gallons, to be exact!

Platelet donation involves just one needle now, so it's not any more painful or difficult than whole blood donation ... it just takes longer. But I never mind giving, because it's a chance to put my feet up for a few hours and read a good book without feeling like I need to get up to vacuum the house or do the laundry.

The view from the chair isn't particularly interesting, so it's easy to concentrate on my book. Sometimes I even fall asleep, although I'm supposed to keep squeezing!

My faithful technician Sally (the only one who can stick me successfully about 90% of the time) chats for a bit, but then she finishes her paperwork and goes off ...

Here's what I look like, all covered up in a blanket because having a pint or so of blood circulating out of your body and then re-entering makes you a bit cold:

Because I'm not too heavy, they never get too many platelets out of me at one time. Some people can do a double or even triple donation, but the Blood Center has to content itself with about this much from me ...

OK, I'll admit it ... I've never really gotten over my squeamishness about needles. I never look when they're sticking me! So even taking this photo with my free hand was a little bit of a stretch for me. But they always cover up the needle site with a little gauze, so it's really not that bad!

Giving blood ... I'm committed to doing it until health or circumstances prevent me from doing so. Because ... if other people hadn't been doing the same thing 15 years ago, this lovely girl, one of the lights of my life, might not be alive today!