Blood drives

I received an award certificate for our agencies today at a Red Cross awards luncheon. We donated 134 pints of blood last year, which puts us in the top 100 for the area. (I'm just the coordinator.) The keynote speaker was a woman who had some horrid thing go wrong in her 8th month of pregnancy (not pre-eclampsia, though they thought that was it at first). After an emergency C-section, she went into a coma for 2 weeks, and was in ICU for 2 months after she came out of the coma. She was close to death numerous times. She was transfused 200 pints of blood. Not surprisingly, she's a regular keynote speaker for blood donations now.

She showed slides & told the stories of other poster children for blood donations. One of was a 2 week old infant who need about 5 Tbsps. of blood via transfusion, and it was challenge to find the right type for him. He's now 8 years old.

It's so stunning to see the slides and, in Lauren's case, person. It takes so little to affect someone's life - to literally save someone's life. One person gave about 1 hour of their time and 1 pint of blood and that kid gets to live. Cool.

I wish they'd still take my blood. Ah well, at least I can organize drives for them.