Giving blood is one of the things I promised to do at least three more times in my thirtieth year. On Thursday, I made the first of these donations. And as it turns out, it was a pretty important blood donation. For me, anyway.
A couple of weeks ago, my usually fit and healthy Mum was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis (MG). It’s a chronic, incurable, but treatable condition which affects your muscles, making them weak. For my Mum, its affected her mouth and throat, making speaking, eating and swallowing difficult. To help her feel better the doctors have treated her with two sessions of plasma exchange. It means she can no longer donate blood herself and so the blood donor register is now one short.
So, we’ve decided to embark on a bit of a campaign. We want to replace the blood supplies that Mum has been treated with and get our friends and family to donate blood. I’m hoping if you read this post you will consider blood donation.
We were told by Mum’s nurse that it takes 30 donors to make one bottle of the human albumin that Mum needs for her plasma exchange to make her feel better. So far, my Mum has had 2 plasma exchanges each using 7 bottles of albumin. Thats an incredible 210 donors required for each of her plasma exchanges!
This photo above shows what yucky plasma looks like! Mum now feels much better with her clean juice.
Donate Blood
To find out where and when to give blood you can visit the NHS blood donation website, or you can speak to a human on 0300 123 23 23. It’s only takes an hour out of your day and you are rewarded both with a feel good feeling and a club biscuit.
Thanks to all the donors who are helping my Mum feel better. Here’s my pint to return the favour. Let me know if you give up a pint, too!
Donate pennies not blood
If you cant or don’t want to donate blood, perhaps you would consider making a donation to our new fundraising page, KickMyArse, which we will be using to raise finds for MyAware. I’m sure some family fundraising will be coming soon.
Please share this post with your friends as family to help us raise awareness of blood donation, myasthenia and our KickMyArse fundraising page.
Thank you.
SEE MORE: 30 IN 30: A SELF INDULGENT BUCKET LIST FOR MY THIRTIETH YEAR
It’s an amazing thing to do, to be a blood donor. I never knew how much was needed for one bottle of plasma. I would happily be a donor. In fact I owe someone six pints, as many years ago I needed blood after my first baby was born, and one day I will pay it back.
Me neither, Georgie – I was amazed! I’m so thankful to the kind people who’ve donated 🙂 6 pints – wow that’s a lot to receive. Are you allowed to donate now that you’ve received? I guess the Southampton centre is a bit far from you but they are a wonderful bunch of vampires 😉 I’m often not allowed because of my travel and health but I always turn up, just in case….