Pulling Back Part II

The telephohe calls started coming, and kept coming. It seemed that loval hospitals were full up with infants in need of viral free blood transfusions. Calls in th wee early morning hours. Calls late at night. they called, I came, we conquered. Of particular note was the time I rushed out of the house, hopped in the car, and drove like mad, like too much mad, towards the donation location. Halfywa there my phone rang again, (I was fortunate to have a cell phone with me, which I seldom do), and I was told that it had been discovered that I was ineligible to donate, owing to the recency of my latest contribution. without having the audacity to ask why in the name of hemophilia I had not been informed of this earlier, before I left the house, and why I had been called in the first place, I hung up, grumbled a bit, and turned around. I kept noticing that nobody ever told me anything about the infants to whom I allegedly gave blood; the outcome, their condition, whether they might need my services again, and so forth. So, I asked. I was told that this information was not normally made available to donors, but for me they would make an exception. They had all survived, and were thriving. This in itself was sufficient to satisfy me, but they went on. I was further told that my services would likely no longer be required, because, alas, in some undertermined way my blood had finally contracted the anti-CMV virus, and, well, I had thus been relegated to the nine hundred and ninety nine out of a thousand viral positive blood category. In all honesty, I had already decided to terminate my availablity as an emergency call if needed blood donor. Too much stress, too little time. My career, as a donar of privileged blood, had come to an abrupt end. I felt relieved, the burden of sharing something rare and special and of the greatest importance lifted from me. Another thought occurred to me: every tiem I had ever donated blood, whole or otherwise, other people were in in the room, bleeding away on the platelet plasma machine. A great deal more time is needed to donate platelets and plasma than whole blood, another reason why I felt somewhat liberated. Surely one in a thousnad people other than me could be found, and made available. I won't ask about this. I'll never know. There's nothing I could do about it in any event. I still donate platelets and plasma, but now, on my terms, in considerably less stressful circumstances.