Easter, With a Needle in My Arm

It's Easter morning, and I'm ready to walk out the door, but I'm not going to a sunrise service or to an egg hunt. In about 90 minutes, I'll be hooked up to a machine that pulls the platelets and plasma out of my most vital fluid, and then cycles the blood back in.

A constant supply of platelets is needed every day for cancer, surgery and transplant patients, and those with blood diseases. One platelet donation delivers what would take five whole blood donations to produce. And for people like me, who have dense platelets...well, I've been told that one of my donations can yield up to three times the usual amount. So I feel honored, since I have so much, to share what comes easily to me with someone else who needs it.

Before I got the call last Thursday, I was expecting that I'd have my usual early Sunday walk with a friend.  Before I got the call, I was planning to go to church with my family and listen to my sister sing with her choir at 10:00 today. Before I got the call, I didn't have to take so many iron supplements to raise my hemoglobin that - well, I'll spare you the earthy details on that one.

But I did get the call. And that's when I found out that, as with other holiday weekends, donations were low - dangerously low, in fact. And I knew this about my walking friend, my family and especially my higher power...none of them would mind if I celebrated Easter with a needle in my arm.



If you're able to give platelets or whole blood, please consider making just 4 donations a year - one for every quarter!  If everyone eligible did that, think of how easily our supplies could be replenished! U.S. donors can visit www.redcrossblood.org to make an appointment today. 

© 2014 A Bit of Brie/Anitabrie