Former blood donor learns what it's like to receive
I gave blood regularly for years because I thought it was the right thing to do. As the Red Cross says, “Give blood; Save a Life.” However, it never occurred to me when I donated to think about the person or persons who would get my blood. I never thought to wonder what might be wrong with them or what it might mean to them to receive blood donated by a volunteer who didn’t even know them.
In short, they didn’t seem particularly real to me, a relative non-entity in the equation of my decision to donate. But my thoughts about blood donation changed drastically in 2004 when I went through a stem cell transplant to treat Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma.
A stem cell transplant is the new method of bone marrow transplantation, in which the patient or a volunteer donor receives growth factor shots that cause stem cells from their bone marrow to be released into their bloodstream. The stem cells are then collected from their blood, preserved in a freezer, and finally transfused into the patient, who by this time has been treated with enough chemotherapy and/or radiation to destroy their bone marrow.
It then takes 2-3 weeks for the transfused stem cells to find their way into the patient’s bone marrow and start to produce the red and white blood cells and the platelets we all must have to survive. During that waiting period, the patient has to depend on numerous transfusions to provide these essential blood components for them.
I will always remember the day I received my first transfusion of donated platelets. As I watched the cells flow down the tubing and into my body, I was overcome with gratitude for the unknown person who donated them. I wondered who that person was and why they had donated and wished with all my heart that I could tell them “thank you”. It struck me how much more “real” that other person was for me as the recipient than any of the recipients of my blood had been to me when I was the donor.
Like all stem cell transplant recipients, I would not be alive today without the kindness and generosity of multiple blood donors. I will never be able to tell them how much their actions meant to me, and I will never again be able to donate blood myself because I have had a blood-related cancer.
My new way to “give back” is to coordinate my church’s annual Red Cross blood drive. By encouraging others to donate, I feel I can still make a difference. I now persuade other people to give because “it’s the right thing to do” and because “giving blood saves lives”, but I also ask them to say a prayer as they donate for the people who will receive their blood. I do this because I now know how very real those recipients are and I understand how much it means to the person like me on the other end whose life is depending on their gift.
- Dr. Martha Nielsen