Wednesday, January 15, 2014

In Service, The Series - #BleedForGuelph

This will be a short blog post since I have limited use of both of my arms right now.

Tonight I gave blood at Canadian Blood Services. The reason both of my arms are unusable is because I learned that the veins on my left arm are tricky to find. So I was stuck twice, once on either arm!

It's the first time I've given blood since 1995,which seems like at least 3 or 4 lifetimes ago.

My good friend, Dr. Mark Kubert, is a chiropractor here in Guelph. Shortly after him and his wife relocated to Guelph and started their practice they began giving back to the community. Besides giving free information sessions all over the place on eating well and staying active, he started a regular blood donation club through Twitter (though Facebookers are welcome also) called #BleedForGuelph.

If I remember correctly, this is the third time the #BleedForGuelph group of donors has booked a bunch of appointments at Canadian Blood Services and given.

I've been wanting to join them every time, but for reasons each time I had a conflict, until tonight.

It was packed at CBS tonight, those nurses were cooking! As well there was a recipient of blood transfusions at the clinic all night meeting people and thanking us for giving. He told us that because of liver failure he went through many transfusions, and I'm not sure I've got the time frame correctly, but at his worst he went through 44 transfusions in 24 hours.

I've been reading Blood by Lawrence Hill and interestingly just yesterday I read the section about blood donations, the scandals, the discriminatory practices, and the fact that people donate without ever knowing or seeing how their donation impacts someone's life. But at CBS tonight, everyone was able to meet someone whose life has changed because of people who take 30 or 40 minutes out of their day and donate blood.

The wooziness and potential for nausea is totally worth it.

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