As a recipient of life-saving blood transfusions (who cannot herself donate same), it feels somehow right for me to apprise my countrymen there's a critical blood shortage happening right across the nation. Please, if you can spare and bear it, get thee to a blood bank or donor clinic ASAP.
Call 1-888-2-DONATE (if you're unsure of the where and when of either place or date).
TIA.
(We now return you to our regularly skedded insanities :).)
Do you know, I tried to donate blood last year and was told that because I lived in Europe for over 3 months in the 1980s, I was ineligible. Apparently, I might be harboring the prions of Mad Cow Disease and they haven't yet manifested themselves. Seems quite stupid to me -- if people need blood, I am healthy and willing to give a pint or two.
ReplyDeleteHoly Firetruck! That's incredible and news to me, Susan. (Also, I learned a new portmanteau, "prions," thanks, BTW.) Still, I don't get it; and, I went to PRION @ Wikipedia to see what one was; I still don't get it, given the fact the page I've flagged says there are ways to wash and cleanse blood; but, are not some of its constituent and equally necessary parts prion-free?
ReplyDeleteSome peeps, for example, just need plasma; others need platelets; are all parts (or products, as they call 'em) infected?
Nonetheless, it's the fact that you were in Europe for over three months during the eighties that really puts me in a bepuzzled state of mind (and, the mind so put simply boggles). It doesn't make sense; and, there are methods for purifying blood to protect recipients from BSE (among other diseases).
Welp, I taught in Nice, France for a year in the nineties; but, that's not why I can't give blood; I can't give blood because I don't weigh enough! I go there, I say, I'm willing to take the risk and, you sure as hell take a lot of my blood for this endless stream (flow?) of tests; what's the prob; lemme sign a waiver (because I have AB Rh Negative type which is, as most know, quite rare and always in demand and that fact is one with which I am intimately familiar; when I needed the last transfusion, they had to put out a call for my blood type; and, they kept doing so in case I needed the next one).
Also, no milk and cookies or, as I've heard, Timmeh coupons, either, for you know who :( . . .
Seems a bit of a tragedy to me; yes, I understand why those with challenged immune systems or specific diseases ought not give blood (because, then, they're committing an irresponsible act which could, potentially, be considered murder).
But, you're healthy! And, even if BSE were the concern, what about those who wouldn't possibly live those many years it takes for it to manifest in humans; its incubation stage is twenty years, I *think* . . .
Anyway, good for you for trying to do the altruistic thing; sad for those among us who depend on transfusions when we hear about rules that, clearly, IMO, don't make a lot of sense; I know I'm not gonna live for twenty more years; that's a fact, anyway ('cause the Death Clock told me I would be six-feet under in 2023!).