I will anoint this blog by regurgitating my first-ever journal entry, written on January 1, 1983, when I was 8 1/2 years old. I will maintain all the spelling and grammatical errors.
Dear Diary,
Today we took down our Christmas tree. I was sad because it was pretty. Today my family and I we were going to my great ant’s house (for new years day). We just got home from Becky’s. She got a guinea pig named buttons. Krissy was a lump there.
I have to go now.
Bye-bye
Jennifer
Now that’s a beginning!
Today I donated blood at the National Institutes of Health, as I do every eight weeks. One of the phlebotomists totally remembered me and my tiny, rolling veins. “I never forget a difficult vein,” she exclaimed, before asking another phlebotomist to do the venipuncture, because she was too nervous to tackle my wee, flighty veins. Awes.
I used to donate for transfusion purposes, but in 2001 all donors who spent six months or longer in the UK were indefinitely deferred, because of fears that they could transmit vCJD (the human variant of mad cow disease). Because I’d studied in England during my junior year of college, this meant that I was deferred, even though I’m a vegetarian (as far as I know, even vegans are deferred from donating). Later this deferral spread to cover anybody who was in western Europe for three months or longer. This means—especially in an international area like DC—that a shocking amount of donors were lost. Thankfully NIH still wanted to use my blood for research purposes, and five years later, I remain a faithful research donor. It’s one of the few charitable things my lazy ass does.
I will say this, though: if you’re able to do so, please consider giving blood, because shortages are very common. It bugs me how everybody rushed out to donate blood after 9/11, but they won’t do it at any other time. What, people who are injured in a terrorist attack are more worthy of blood than people with leukemia or car accident injuries? I don’t buy it.
song heard most recently before posting:
Say You’ll Be There —the Spice Girls. (Oh shaddup. Like you never drove to work while blasting shallow British ’90s pop music.)
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1 comment:
Hey, Did you know it is still illegal for "practising homosexuals" to donate blood in th UK? I tried to test the system a few years back by applying to give blood through my former employer, CPP, and filling in the form with all the medical and lifestyle details on it. I was completely honest about my life, and so didn't hear anything back from them. Isn't it crazy how they are always complaining they have a shortage of blood for various things and yet discount 10% of the population from giving it? Talk about counterproductive. And doesn't it make me feel really great as a Brit to know that your Yankee blood system thinks all our red juice is tainted by VCJD. Nice. Thanks USA.
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