How is the Red Cross like the late Alan Rickman?
This way: They keep calling me and saying, “You. Our place. 5:30. And bring a friend!” (See above video.)
OK, I’ll admit, they’re a LOT more polite about it than that, but if you boil it down, that’s the gist. They call and ask me to give again, and to schedule it at the earliest possible time (because the need is great). And at some point in the conversation, they say, “And bring a friend!”
So, this is me inviting my friends.
I’m scheduled to give platelets at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. And just in case I’m inclined to put it off in any way, they sent me an email yesterday that includes this image:
So I plan to be there, because the guilt trip thing works on me.
But why should it just be me? Nobility loves company.
I’ve been honest with y’all about the fact that giving platelets is a bit of a hassle — it takes at least a couple of hours. So it would be especially awesome if more of y’all would agree to do it, and take some of the pressure off of me.
That said, if you haven’t given blood at all before, I urge you to go and at least give whole blood, the easiest process of all (I’ve given whole blood in just over five minutes).
And now they’ve got a new thing where you can answer all those prying questions (like whether you’ve been paid for sex, even once…) online ahead of time, meaning less time spent at the Red Cross facility on Bull Street.
So… consider it. The need is always there…
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Yeah, I know, I write about this pretty frequently, and y’all have probably said everything you have to say about it.
But hey, the need continues, which is why they keep calling me.
But you know what? We might not have such shortages if so many people weren’t ineligible.
As Kathryn has said many times, she can’t give because she spent a few months in England back in the 80s.
Just today, in an effort to get SOMEBODY besides me to give, I said to an colleague in a lighthearted way, “I’m giving blood this evening, unlike SOME people…” And he said he couldn’t give because they won’t take blood from gay men.
Which is true. See the third bullet:
So I felt pretty bad there, and apologized sheepishly.
Then there is the fact that you get red-flagged if you’ve had a tattoo or body piercing, which pretty much counts out most of my kids’ generation.
No wonder they keep calling me…
Actually, I raised that point about the tattoos and body piercings with a Red Cross worker once, asking who was going to give blood after my generation dies out.
They said answering affirmatively to those two doesn’t count you out; you just get asked additional questions. Just as they do with me when I disclose that I was in Thailand last year. You’ll recall that it counted me out for a year once the followup questions determined I’d been in Kanchanaburi (danger of malaria). But now I’m OK to give.
Counting out sexually active gay men — that is, ones who have been active in the last 39 years — seems particularly weird since they test the blood for HIV anyway! In that case, you don’t even need follow-up questions…
I use to give fairly regularly when I was in my 20s, but once had a Red Cross lady tell me I had some scar tissue on my skin (I assume from where I had given blood before because that’s the only thing I had done to my arm) and it caused her some issues getting my blood.
At that point I was done. I figured it she was going to have that much trouble, they didn’t need me being the test case for them.
The nurses at the doctors office don’t typically have any issue (or at least much of an issue) getting blood out of my arm.
Well, after all that buildup… I ended up NOT giving platelets last night.
When I arrived at the appointed time, they were so blessed with donors that they said I’d have to wait an hour — for a procedure that, once it starts, can take more than two hours.
So I rescheduled to Monday.
It’s nice that they were overburdened with donors for once. In my experience, as someone who has donated 66 units (I’m not ashamed to brag, not about this), that is something that doesn’t happen all that often…