I donated blood for the second time in my life last week. The first time was in 2018, so about an 8 year gap. I plan on doing it regularly now every 3 months, which is the minimum thats allowed to donate whole blood. This post is mostly just an encouragement post for you to try donating blood if you haven’t and are a healthy adult. Blood is extremely important in saving people’s lives.
The most obvious use for donated blood is to transfuse into other people. Most people immediately think of trauma patients, for example people who were in a car accident or fell from a high place. Blood is also used during surgery, as a patient is bound to lose lots of blood when the surgeons initially open up the area related to the surgery. There’s also the value it brings to research. One of my favorite stories is of James Harrison, who’s blood was found to have a very rare antigen that could prevent babies from dying due to Rh disease. It’s estimated he saved nearly 2 million babies from dying(!), which is just incredible.
There are many reasons why people don’t donate blood. The most common one is that they don’t know how useful it is, which is why I hope to increase awareness with even this small blog post.
The next most common is they are scared of needles. That’s perfectly normal, I’m also scared of needles. Just last month, I had to get 3 needle injections, one for a blood test in a medical checkup, another for the flu vaccine, and the last for the blood donation. In all three instances, I was able to get over the fear of the needle by looking away. The medical staff doing the injection were also always nice as they tried to distract me during the injection.
Genuinely it’s not that bad, but if you’re still scared then my next advice would be to bring a friend or family along to do the donation with you. It’s been proven that seeing someone else endure something scary can help you overcome your fear of it as well. This is true even if you’re both scared.
There’s a ton more I can talk about donating blood, but this is not meant to be a detailed description of donating blood and instead meant to be an awareness post instead. Hopefully I’ve peaked atleast 1 reader with the curiousity to donate blood. Please donate! It saves lives!