Mortaine’s Blog

In the last 10 days, I found Dan Joseph and Marieke () on orkut. I should say Marieke found me, but I’m still glad we re-located each other.

It’s nice to reconnect with old friends. I just hope this doesn’t run me into any unwanted ex’s.

But then, in my humbler moments, I wonder if my unwanted ex’s might have discovered how prevalent I am on the Internet and are just avoiding it altogether (yes, my ego is that huge….)

A couple of years ago, I signed up to be an apheresis platelet donor. I figured I have good veins in both arms, I’m healthy, I’m O+, and I show up regularly, so why not?

I was told at the time that they really needed O donors to donate whole blood, so I never did apheresis. I was also told some faulty science about why O donors shouldn’t give platelets, but it turns out not to be true, so I won’t repeat it here.

Anyway, this week I got a call from “Art” from the Red Cross. He’s the apheresis coordinator, and he’d been going through all the O donors they hadn’t gotten in to donate before. It turns out, I requested apheresis in October 2001 (probably my only donation in 2001, since I was sick all year). Blood supplies were so low, they deferred all new O-type apherisis donors until supplies of whole O blood could be brought back up. They must have restored the reserves, because Art is now calling people from up to 3 years ago to see if they’re still interested.

Anyway, I have a whole blood donation appointment scheduled for June 1st, so we set up my apheresis evaluation (they’re going to take an extra vial during donation to count my platelets) for the same time. If my platelet count is high enough, I’ll be able to donate platelets.

Platelet donation involves a needle in each arm. They remove the blood from one arm, spin out the platelets, and replace the remaining blood into the other arm. The process takes about 2 hours, but recovery is much faster– only a few days for platelet donation, compared to 8 weeks for whole blood (yes, I will continue to donate whole blood after this, fear not).

During the donation, you get to watch a movie of your choice on a personal TV at your donation station. Spiffy, huh? A way to get some of the chick flicks out of the way when John isn’t there.

Oh, and of course, since I’m a baby donor, my platelets would almost certainly go to Oakland Children’s Hospital to help sick babies. How’s that for a feel-good moment of the day?