Thank you to blood donors!

We got to take advantage of the "other" side of blood donation on Friday evening. Dwayne received a unit of blood that had been donated, probably from someone here in the Richmond area.

Dwayne got a unit of A+ blood! I think his blood type is O+, but he can receive from A or B blood types - so I was thinking that this is like the best grade (A+) of all in the area of blood!

I had never been on *this* side of blood donation. It was interesting to see how precious this gift was treated by the nurses. They also were very attentive during the transfusion process, with a nurse staying with him throughout the first 15 minutes of the transfusion, checking vitals and making sure that he had no negative reaction. Then a nurse checked vitals every 15 minutes through the first hour, and every hour after that. It took about 3 hours to complete the transfusion of one unit of whole blood.

My dad was a big blood donation person. I think he gave every time the Red Cross Bloodmobile came to the county (or the neighboring county) where we lived, and I think they scheduled their visits to be just at the point where the donors from the last visit would be eligible to donate again (8 weeks apart). I think that my brother started donated blood as a teenager, but I didn't until I was in college. I remember my first experience - the donation site was at St Bede's church in Williamsburg, and there was a HUGE line. As I recall, my friend Debbie and I went, and we had to wait a while before we got to the initial check in location where they took our names. Then we went beyond the door and were on pews which seemed to go on forever - sliding down the pew until we got to the end of one and moving on to the next. As I recall, we were in the donation area at this point, so the people who had already made it through the line were on the "lounge chairs" (that's what they were using then) donating in view in front of us. Having no frame of reference, it was very disconcerting watching people get "stuck" - my mind thought of how painful it must be (it wasn't, but my mind was great at imagining!). We finally got to the place where they checked a drop of blood to see if we were anemic. They also asked our weight - I knew that the limit was 110 pounds, and that was about what I weighed then, but I remember lying and saying that I was 120 pounds so they wouldn't weigh me! I didn't want to fail at that point after waiting for 2-3 hours! After donating, in the college town, the local church ladies had made sandwiches for the folks who donated to eat and they were delicious. It was definitely a draw for college students to have homemade sandwiches!

A couple of years ago while we were here in Virginia, we went with my brother and nephew to donate at their church. Dwayne was showing as low iron (not dangerously low, but just too low to donate blood) at that time.
But last year, in December, when we were in Palm Desert, we donated blood:  https://trekincartwrights.blogspot.com/2017/12/giving-back.html
None of the places that I've donated since college have had sandwiches like the church ladies in Williamsburg made!

Now, having experienced the receiving end, I want to say "Thank You!" to whoever the generous person was who donated this unit of blood in the last few days.