Repaying a debt

Mother holding me when I’m about six months old.

I hate donating blood.

First comes a bureaucratic nightmare in which the would-be donor has to answer the same questions she answered the last time she donated, plus repeat her name and birthdate repeatedly. I despise paperwork and bureaucracy, but I understand the need for blood safety.

Second, I’m delivered into the hands of a vampire who wants to suck blood from my arm.

My friend Martha asked me if giving blood was easy.

When I said, “No, I’m a turnip,” she howled with laughter.

That’s funny until the vampire comes.

I loathe needles and tense up whenever I get near a person wielding one. My veins collapse and disappear. The last two times I’ve donated, the vampires had to poke and prod and wiggle the needle around in my arm to get good flow from the vein. I just won’t scream, but I was biting down hard to keep from it.

“Are we hurting you? Do you want to try another vein? Do you not want to donate?”

“Yes, no and no. I’ve gotten this far and I’m going to donate!”

Yes, I hate the process, although Thursday’s experience wasn’t nearly as trying as the others have been.

I love being a blood donor.

Because of blood donors, I grow up with a mother. My mother hemorrhaged when she gave birth to me and needed blood badly. Because someone had donated, she received that lifesaving fluid.

Because of blood donors, I got to have my mother a little longer than I would have without them. My mother got acute myelecytic leukemia. She received repeated platelet donations because her clotting factors were so critically low due to the disease. The leukemia took her in five months, but the platelets prolonged her life and gave it greater quality than she would have had without them.

When I donate, I am repaying the inestimable debt I owe to my mother’s blood donors.

Whoever you were, I thank you.