Day 44 – Donate Blood.

To be quite honest with you, I wasn’t looking forward to today’s “deed of the day”. I have never been a big fan of needles nor blood, let alone a needle in my arm taking out my blood. In Miami, it seems like you must make an appointment for any good deed, whether it’s donating clothes or giving blood which is pretty bizarre to me.

As y’all know by now, I am a pretty big fan of researching and knowing the facts before posting an entry so that’s exactly what I did for today’s deed and I was amazed at the facts that I learned regarding being a blood donor.

To be begin with, did you know that donating blood is actually good for your body? According to a well-known doctor by the name of Dr. Amen (and yes, I confirmed through other articles that Dr. Amen is correct); when donating blood you are lowering the iron levels in your body which can help reduce heart disease. You see, excessive iron in your body is thought to contribute to heart disease, especially at its early stages and donating blood on a regular basis has been proven to lower your iron levels which in turn preserve your heart and vascular health. Some other good reasons donating blood is good for your body are that it can help reduce cancer, help reduce heart attack risk and your body replenishes the blood right away.  When you donate blood, your body replaces the blood volume within 48 hours; this process helps your body stay healthy and work more efficiently and productively.
 
Now, a part from thinking about yourself, there are other reasons why you should donate blood. Every two seconds someone in the United States needs blood, that means 44,000 blood donations are needed per day to save lives and 20% of the receivers are children (many cancer patients); not to mention 1 out of every 7 people who enter a hospital need blood. The demand for blood is high but the supply is not enough; about 60% of the population is eligible to give blood, yet less than 4% do. One pint of blood from one donor alone can save up to three lives which is pretty amazing to me. One of my favorite reasons to give blood is you also get FREE cookies and juice, what could be better than that? J The list of why you should donate blood goes on and on, you can find out more at the Red Cross website.

Today, I chose to donate to the Community Blood Centers of Florida, Inc. - I chose their Bird Road location because that specific location donates all of their blood to our local children's hospital called Miami Children's Hospital. While donating blood today I learned so much that I didn’t know prior, I learned that I hadn’t donated blood since 2004 and that I have the most common blood type which is O positive; 40 out of 100 people have my blood type. But the one thing I learned today that I never knew is that I am what you would call a “baby donor”. What that means is I am CMV negative.

CMV stands for Cytomegalovirus which is a flu-like, non-fatal virus that at least 85% of Americans have without even knowing. Despite CMV having the words “disease” and “virus”, it is scarcely mentioned by doctors and physicians because it’s very common and pretty much harmless. Currently only 15% of the population is CMV negative which is the only type of blood that they can transfuse into a baby and/or newborn; the reason being is that infants have lower immune systems due to not being fully developed so every precaution must be taken to avoid infection and the purest blood is CMV negative. Probably like you, I have never ever heard of CMV so I was kind of shocked when they told me about it. At the end of the day, I love babies and children, so if I could choose to save a life it would definitely be a baby which means I am pretty thrilled at the fact that I am considered a rare baby donorJ.

Point being is, GO OUT THERE AND SAVE A LIFE, it's free, you get free cookies and you never know, you might be one of the rare 15% that could save babies!!♥

P.S. Click "here" to read patient stories for motivation!!J