There will be Blood

Like the Daniel Day Lewis movie today’s adventure involved lots and lots of blood. Yes - it was my blood and though it wasn’t particularly fun today it was for a good cause. I donated platelets today at our the local Denver blood bank - Bonfils. Today was a special donation day for me, as I achieved my 3 gallon pin. Imagine the gallon of milk in your refrigerator filled with blood and multiplied by three. That is how much blood I have donated to Bonfils over the last several years. My donation count should be much higher but I was excluded from donating for about 2 ½ years because of my travel to such exotic fun spots such as India.

The reason today's donation wasn't particularly fun was the length of time that I was hooked up to the apherisis machine. Given the amount of platelets they took off of me - two extra large units, I had to be hooked up to the machine for the maximum allowable time - 130 minutes. Sitting in the chair for that long without being able to move your left arm can be tough. Normally my platelet donations do not more than 100 minutes. But since they were going to take such a large donation from me - it took a long time. I am very passionate about donating blood. It is something that really takes no effort yet it saves so many lives. After donating a whole unit of blood or as I did today - two large units of platelets you walk away feeling like the king of the world. It is such an inspiring feeling to know that you have saved a life. At least it is too me anyway. I took my camera with me today to the donation. I managed to have the tech take a couple of pictures of me. Additionally, I couldn’t resist the urge to take a picture of the needle going into my arm and the actual bag of platelets that had been sucked out of me.

I don’t know if what I did today really classifies as an adventure or not. But it gave me that same feeling I have when I accomplish some great feat of physical endurance like climbing a 14’er or something like that. So I guess it will count as an adventure. Zack can’t take part in this adventure yet because he is too small, but he has said that he wants to try and donate blood when he gets old. I really hope he does.

Til later - peace to all!