Today’s Daily Post is Pride and Joy. Mine is my blood. It is a good opportunity to remind you to donate blood.
As I have written, I am a now a big proponent of donating blood. I’m a coward when it comes to essentially all things medical but I can assure you that the process is painless, and not even terribly wooz-inducing. I’m up to thirteen donations now and my only regret is that I didn’t start earlier.
During the preparation for one of my donations – temperature, blood pressure, hemoglobin check, a whole bunch of very personal questions – while looking over my file the nurse exclaimed “Oh my goodness”. Being a bit of a Negative-Norman I immediately assumed she had found something on my chart indicating some sort of rare disorder that will cause my blood to solidify in my veins by age sixty or some other hideous affliction.
But no; what she told me she had found was that not only is my blood type RH O Negative, making me a Universal Donor – Everybody Loves DC or maybe Donovan Leach will re-record the Universal Soldier, but updated to Donor – but I am also CMV Negative.
My wild hoots of relief came to an abrupt end when I realized I had no idea what she was talking about. So she explained that CMV is a virus that about half the adults in the world have. It poses no health problem unless you are a newborn in need of a transfusion, then you’d be wanting CMV-free blood. As the New York Blood Centre puts it, CMV (cytomegalovirus) is a common virus found in the environment. It can be spread through body fluids, including blood transfusions. About 50% of the general population is infected. It is not a serious infection, except for people who are already in compromised health conditions, such as newborn babies or pregnant women. In these cases, the CMV virus could cause birth defects.
Yep, I’m a baby saver! No cape, no ability to leap tall buildings – not even short ones come to think of it, and I get claustrophobic in elevators – just about ten pints of baby-saving blood flowing through a maze of my veins.
The fact that I am both CMV Negative and O Negative puts me in a very small group; about 1.4% of the world’s population. This got me thinking, which is not always a good thing. When it comes to bees the queen is revered, cosseted in the hive and waited on wing and stinger by a plethora of drones. So important is she to the overall well-being of the hive that her every whim is their desire.
It seems to me that we baby-saving double negatives should be treated in a somewhat similar fashion. Perhaps we should be housed in large elegant mansions, with a veritable army of staff to see to our needs. Provided with only the best food and drink prepared by world-class chefs, first-rate exercise equipment and superior sound systems. Thus ensuring we make certain our rare but baby-saving blood is ready for harvesting every 56 days.
Clearly this is yet another example from nature of beasts being miles ahead of humans when it comes to self-protection. Yet before you suggest I find myself a large hive in which to take up residence I should tell you I’m afraid of bees too!
DCMontreal 
Such great practice! Such a shame though that those bottles of blood aren’t well preserved in our country!
Good for you for donating regularly! I’m chronically anemic, so I can’t ever give blood, but would if I could.
It’s the thought that counts!
🙂 Thanks.. would be nice to give though. Oh well.
“Perhaps we should be housed in large elegant mansions, with a veritable army of staff to see to our needs. Provided with only the best food and drink prepared by world-class chefs, first-rate exercise equipment and superior sound systems. Thus ensuring we make certain our rare but baby-saving blood is ready for harvesting every 56 days.”
OR…..we could just strap you to a bed and force feed you hospital food and harvest your blood! (Just kidding).
Congrats for being a bay saver.
You are pragmatic … cruel, but pragmatic! Cheers.
I would really like to know how to “like” your blogs. Cant figure it out.
Toward the bottom is a “like” button. But your comments are nice too! Thanks.
This is an admirable thing donating blood regularly.
Thanks.
I’ve had cancer, so no one wants my blood. OR my organs. But I’ve known a few people with rare blood types who gave a lot of blood because there were so few of them.