Courteousy of BabyPennington
You know, I’ve been a blood donor for as long as I have been legally able. When I gave blood for the first time at age 18, my motives weren’t quite as heroic as it sounds. It was a chance to get out of class and gain points for the USC vs. Clemson blood drive when I was in college . If you live anywhere near SC, you know giving blood for your SC Gamecocks to win against Clemson in ANYTHING is the least you can do! After that, I gave blood because I felt special. I have type O negative blood, and the Red Cross always called me when my 45 days between donations expired. They literally begged me to donate. Pretty selfish of me to actually think that I was special merely because I gave blood. The older I got, I began to realize that what I did made a difference. I began to feel that it was my duty to help out. In my naivety, I was proud of myself for donating blood. My hopes, back then, would be that one day if I needed blood, good karma would follow. Never in a million years, would I have ever expected that one day I would be at the mercy of other blood donors as my Mary Clare received multiple blood transfusions and received so many pints of blood during her hospital stints. My child, not myself. That certainly humbled me and brought me to my knees, literally. My youthful mind and immature ways of thinking often haunt me to this day.
I thank God for those that gave blood for my Mary Clare. Wouldn’t it be awesome to know exactly whose blood she received, so I could call them and thank them personally, although words would never begin to describe the gratitude I have.
All of this rambling about blood donations leads me to the article I mentioned previously. The mother is waiting on a heart for her son. She asks a bold question, “Why are people dying every day when perfectly good organs are being buried in the ground?” Good question. Her son is on a transplant wait list because he is in heart failure. His heart didn’t adjust well after his Fontan surgery, which is the exact same surgery that Mary Clare will have soon.
It is almost silly that everyone isn’t an organ donor. Thankfully, I have an outsider’s point of view. So many HLHS babies require heart transplants, and right now, Mary Clare is not one of those babies. Living with a half heart has it’s own downfalls, but she is overcoming those. I hope and pray that she’ll never need a transplant, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m an organ donor, and I would certainly give her my very own heart today if needed. I know that isn’t possible, but my hope is that if she ever needs a heart that somewhere, someone would feel the same way.
If you are not an organ donor, please go here. (There is even a USC vs. Clemson competition going on right now!)
…and if you need another reason, click on Owen’s button below. He is a sweet HLHS baby boy also waiting on a heart.
No comments:
Post a Comment