I hate cancer.
My grandfather died of esophageal cancer, no doubt picked up from decades of smoking. My friend Wil's mother Helen, a really great woman, died while being treated for cancer. I have known friends and strangers with it. As the blogger Elden of FatCyclist.com pointed out recently, "cancer is evil." He knows, his wife is dying slowly and painfully from it.
I've given money regularly to organizations like the American Cancer Society (cancer.org) and to the LiveStrong foundation (LiveStrong.org), and now to Susan G. Komen (komen.org). But I don't think that's enough. Our country could, if it wanted to, spend enough money in research to eradicate cancer from the planet. It seems more important though to focus on foreign policy blunders. Maybe that will change now.
Today I gave a platelet donation for the first time. Platelets, part of our blood, are vital to cancer treatment, among other things. Platelets are used in treatment of bone marrow transplant, organ transplant and other treatments (A friend of mine recently came close to lapsing into a coma due to a yet-not-quite-figured out condition causing her to have low platelets.)
The process takes just about two hours, and isn't much more involved than giving blood. Well, it IS mostly giving blood, though the blood is passed through a machine that separates out the platelets. Most of my time was spent watching The Soup on my iPhone, and sipping apple juice.
Other than the first stick, it's painless. If you're low on calcium your lips might tingle and so the phlebotomists have Tums on hand. (Next time I'm taking a few first.) Since I'm a pansy and prone to lightheadedness when giving blood, I had to have my very-comfy-donating-recliner tilted back all the way. Other than a few seconds of lightheadedness when I was still too upright, the process was fine.
Platelets only have a five-day shelf-live and they're vital to cancer treatment as they are to other medical treeatments.
Please, please, go give some platelets. Give blood too, of course, that's crucially important, but giving platelets will have a direct and intense effect on the life of someone with cancer or blood-based illness before the week is out.
If you're in the area, you can schedule a donation at nybloodcenter.org. Platelets can be given every three days, because the body makes them so quickly, so you can do it more than once a month. (And right now, if you donate four times before January 31st, you get a $35 Mastercard Gift Card.)
Of course, I'm going to keep giving money until there isn't any such thing as cancer, but I'm also going to give my time and my blood as well.
Comments