Lifeblood

Three times a year the American Red Cross would set up a blood donation location in our school. My freshmen year I saw giving blood as an opportunity to get out of class, but it wasn’t until my sophomore year that I was allowed to donate and I was more than willing to do so. By that point I had matured a bit and began to think less of myself and more of others. I still got to miss some class, but the thrill of it wasn’t there anymore. There was a sense of purpose and I was happy to do it. I never knew where my blood went and really didn’t think much of it.

                  In college I had the same opportunity to give blood. The American Red Cross would again come about three times a year for students to donate. I didn’t get to miss class when I donated but it made me feel good. Something happened in college though. I seemed to lose sight of the good donating blood did. I was defiantly all for folks giving blood but my desire to do it myself changed. I began to think about the uncomfortable aspects of donating like the finger prick (my least favorite part) to test your iron levels, the needle being inserted, how the needle felt when it was in, and when it came out. All of these things began to play over in my mind. My uncomfortableness prevented others from potentially receiving the blood they needed. Many times in my later college career I saw the opportunity but chose not to participate because I would have to compromise my personal comfort for 15 minutes.

                  This past week I again had the opportunity to give blood in Baguio, but something was different. While on a tour through one of our local hospitals I had the priveledge to meet one of our patients from the CRU who has experienced a relapsed in his cancer treatment. He is a wonderful child who has gone through so much. As part of his treatment he has needed many blood transfusions, but in the Philippines in order for you to receive blood from the blood bank you must have someone able to donate to the blood bank. When the social worker told me this all of my uncomfortable feelings of giving blood came back, but this time it was different. This time I was looking at a child in need of something I had.  Three of us went down to give blood for this child, two of us came out with 400ml less blood…I wasn’t one of them. During the pre-donation screening I was rejected because I had a runny nose…from allergies. I don’t mind to tell you I was frustrated. In all of my time, I have never been turned down due to allergies. I had something, something in me that I hadn’t experienced before when giving blood, passion. I knew my cause, I knew my purpose and I knew the end goal. Griping about not being able to give blood isn’t the point (I waited until after the typhoons has washed the pine pollin away and my nose stopped running then I was able to give blood). Why is it that we must come face to face with need before we will kick into action? It took me sitting with a little boy with a mortal need of blood to get over a “discomfort” of giving blood. Allow me to encourage you to step past an excuse, discomfort, inconvience, your time table, to do list, your fear and see the need and then take care of it(Matthew 25.31-46).