It use to be that the local vampires would wait until the day after I became eligible.  Recently I have been giving at a church where the organizer would call me before I was eligible to schedule me for the blood drive, so I have been spared for the past year.  But I missed the last scheduled donation.  I went a week later and gave, but they have started to go every 8 weeks, so that means I was a week short this time.

And the vampires called at 8:30AM on the day I was eligible!  I had already decided to give on that day hoping that the church would go back to a nine week schedule, so this was my first call in awhile.  Still, I have to ask myself why they are so anxious for me to give.

I know I have the "sweet" blood type - O negative.  The universal donor.  They will not even let me give a double (take out 2 pints and put back 1 pint of plasma) as my blood type seems to be the one that they need the whole unit, not just part of it.

Still, I have given 114 pints (registered) to them, plus about another 20 they lost when they changed systems (they have changed twice as I have been giving over 30 years), and then the pints I donated in Ohio.  So I have given a lot.  My left arm (I always chose that one because of the restriction on "lifting" after giving) looks like a junkies delight.  So by now, nothing is "new".  Except why so few give.

I know so many cannot.  If you are gay (practicing) forget it.  That may be changing (hopefully).  But then there are so many other reasons that they reject you.  Lived in England?  Mad Cow (not the rachel type), so you are verbotten.  Been to Africa (AIDS rampant), forget it.  And on and on.  Hepatitis has gotten many and put them on the permanent no donate list.

But for all the restrictions, there are still many that can give.  And never do.  It is not the blood the government takes (and with disdain).  This is the ultimate gift of life.  You get nothing (well, sometimes I pick up a tee shirt for my wife), yet somewhere some poor soul will live because of it.  When I passed 100 pints, I was featured in a newsletter for centurions.  And the question was - why? 

In my case, my answer was dull - because I can.  No one that I know has ever needed it.  I just do because I can (although I REALLY hate needles!).  I use to think I was being so altruistic, in a conceited way.  I gave even though I do have needle-phobia (latin scholars, please let me know if there is a term for that).  Then one day, I was getting a bleeding when one guy came in to donate.  He warned the phlebotomists  that he regularly passed out when giving.

REGULARLY.  Which means he had given many times and passed out frequently.  Me?  I got woozy once (blogged about 5 years ago).  ONCE!  I felt like a schmuck!  My phobia of needles then seemed to be so pathetic.  And it was and is.  And so I continue. 

I do wish they were not so demanding.  Not because I think think they are mean.  But because I wish others who can would.  Especially men.  Women do have periodic problems.  The key word being the 4th one in the previous sentence.  That is a fact of nature.  But men?  We replenish our blood within 48 hours.  They make us wait 8 weeks out of a super conservative desire to not make us anemic (you get your iron back within a couple of weeks).

And MEN!  Hey!  You hate the doctor?  (So many studies say we do). Donate a pint!  You get a mini physical that can warn you of bad things!  I was warned early of a polyp on my colon (benign - but my grandfather died from colon cancer).  And I was warned early of hypertension (under control now - 112/66).  So you do get some benefit from it.  And so many others do as well.

I give now because I can. I do so because there are many (they say 3 people benefit from each pint you donate) that I have helped that I will never know.  I hope I never know any of the ones that do benefit (not because I do not want to know them, but because I hope no one I know needs my donations).  But many are alive today because I do.  I wish more would take that attitude.  Unfortunately, so few do.

114 officially with VBS and counting.  If you have ever gotten a pint of O negative in central Virginia, we are probably blood brothers (or siblings).