World Blood Donation Day: Let’s estimate the value of 350ml blood

Imagine yourself standing outside a door that says OPERATION THEATRE with a red bulb glowing under that board. You are restlessly pacing in the corridor with drops of sweat on your forehead as your (God forbade) mother or father, brother or sister or your dearest friend lies on the operation table under the eyes of a team of doctors. A nurse emerges from the door and asks you to arrange for a unit of blood urgently as their blood bank is short of that particular blood group. That very moment you will realize the value of just 1 unit of blood.

I remember one advertisement in which a sweet little girl says ‘thank you’ to a group of youngsters sitting in a cafeteria. When asked for what she was thanking them, she replied that she is suffering from some disease in which she needs weekly blood transfusions. She doesn’t know whose blood renews her life every week, so she keeps on thanking every youngster she meets. This shook the heart of one boy who has never donated blood in his life and he decides to donate his blood for people who are in need of it.

If these two instances could not move your legs towards a blood bank, then make a note that God has forgot to put a heart in the left side of your chest.

Blood – it’s the basic fluid in your body that supplies oxygen and nutrients to every cell of your body and takes waste products of metabolism away from it. It neither can be replaced by any other fluid nor can be developed in vitro (outside the body). The need for donating blood and establishing more blood banks increases in the present era as statistics record an increase in the number of accidents as well as in the incidence of diseases such as Thalassemia for which regular blood transfusions is the only way of increasing life expectancy of the patient.

If you are thinking that donating a unit of blood will make you ill or you yourself will fall short of blood then let me tell you that even a lady normally loses some milliliters of blood every month during her menstrual period and there is not a single case where a lady died due to normal menstrual blood loss. Moreover, you all must have read at some time or other that a normal life span of RBCs (Red Blood Cell; cells that form a major part of your blood) has a life span of 120 days, that is, your blood keeps on getting renewed in every 120 days. So even if you donate few milliliters out of your 4.7 – 5.5 L of blood, your body will easily compensate the loss. If you don’t believe me, go ask any doctor around for more guidance.

Its Blood Donation day today; a perfect day to make a decision that we will be donating our blood at regular intervals. You never know whose valuable life your blood might be saving. So it’s in your hands whether to make your 350 ml of blood a mere waste or to make it priceless. Start donating and start saving lives…!!!