My Back. Let Me Pat It.

I received my 6 gallon certificate from the hospital blood services department today. That's 48 pints or approximately 24 liters. I donated another 43 units or so back in Salt Lake City before moving but the Red Cross doesn't give out prizes like the local hospital here does. (I have enough blood related T-shirts to last the rest of my life already.)

And that's almost all platelets, too. I switched from whole blood to platelets back in SLC when they asked me to do a directed donation for the children's hospital. Even though my blood type is common, for some reason, I am part of the 1% that does not carry the common cytomegalovirus making my otherwise plain vanilla blood suitable for people with compromised immune systems.

Before that I gave in both Connecticut and New Jersey when I lived/went to school there but I wasn't nearly so conscientious then. I think that may have something to do with a bad experience at school in New Jersey when the Red Cross did a drive and everyone I went in with was all through and done and the next batch was finishing up while I was still on the table because my vein had collapsed and nothing was drawing so the doctor in charge pulled the needle from my right arm, walked around the table, and jabbed it into my left arm. Now a days, the slightest thing goes wrong they pull the works, stop the process and trash the lot but back then there was no HIV/AIDS or BSE and very little concern for hepatitis or any of the other horrors now on the questionnaire and that doctor was not going to just walk away with a half-full bag.

Anyway, if I totaled them all together I'm probably somewhere around 20 gallons, lifetime. So now I've got my certificate and I'm scheduled again for the 15th.

I feel so noble.