Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Gratitude Post #6

Today, I am grateful for blood donors, specifically the seven people that donated blood that saved Kevin's life this year. That's not an overly dramatic statement from me, for once. As I wrote in my post "Jagged Little Pill", it details Kevin's crazy experience with losing A LOT of blood and how vital it was that he get blood back in him to survive and how weak he was without it. So, as a thank you for this, I donated blood today. It had been several years since I had donated so I looked up a local blood drive and signed up. This is my arm giving blood (viewer discretion is advised):

There had been a little gauze covering the offending needle inserted into my arm, but it fell off, so I apologize to those who are a little queasy at seeing this. It does not bother me at all. In fact, when I was working at an outpatient infusion center for a few years, we performed phlebotomies, which is when a person has too much blood volume and a unit needs to be removed. Unfortunately, this blood removed is not available to give to someone else since the iron level is too high in their blood. I LOVED doing these. There was something about the challenge of finding that vein with a large needle and the patients did not always have veins that popped up, so you really had to know your vascular anatomy to get it right with the available veins. This time I was donating my blood, I didn't do the usual fake passing out like I have in the past. I have scared a few techs that way, but it's so funny.

If you haven't donated blood and are able to, I strongly encourage you to. You can help a generally strong healthy man rebuild his blood supply back to a normal level after he gets a vitamin lodged in his throat that tears his esophagus that causes internal bleeding that cannot be repaired until the large clot surrounding the tear can be dissolved and then the doctor can repair it.