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Save the world

By Me | July 28, 2007

At the risk of sounding like a sap, I care about things like community service and contributing to society.

On the other hand, I don’t really have the right kind of personality for doing things like volunteering at soup kitchens or even helping out at Habitat for Humanity building sites. And I don’t have enough money to spare for the various causes that take my fancy - besides,when it comes to being a contributing member of your community, somehow just handing somebody money seems too easy.

But there is one thing I can do. It’s my particular and peculiar way of supporting my community.

I give blood.

Generally speaking, I do it at least four times a year - more often if I can manage to remember my appointments. Over the last couple of years, Gina and I have been going together. She’s been watching me do this almost all her life and, as soon as she was old enough (and weighed enough), she was eager to join me. We’re known among the local Red Cross volunteers as the ‘mother-daughter blood donor pair.’

Now, there is a reason why I feel particularly good about this. You see, Gina and I both have O negative blood.

Only six percent of the population have that blood type but it is the universal donor. That is, O negative blood can be used for anybody of any blood type that needs a transfusion.

In an emergency, when doctors don’t have time to figure out blood types, they reach for the O negative.

It’s also fairly common for doctors to use O negative blood when they need it for newborn babies.

As you can see, O negative blood is pretty useful stuff. And they never, ever have enough of it. The last time one of those friendly Red Cross volunteers (referred to affectionately by Gino as “The Vampires”) called my house to ask if I could schedule an appointment to give blood, she told me that O negative blood is “superblood.”

And, while I would never walk around the neighborhood wearing a tee-shirt with a big red “S” on my chest and while you might possibly think I’m crazy, it’s nice to know that I’m doing something that saves lives.

It’s even nicer to know that my children, all O negative, are learning that they should do it, too.

(Here’s hoping that they wind up feeling the same way about voting, something else they’ve been watching me do all my life.)

Topics: Stuff |

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