I helped a cancer patient today... maybe saved their life. I donated platelets... I've been donating whole blood for a few decades now... but the last time, I read promotional material for donating platelets and plasma and thought... why not. I'm an A+ blood type, which means I'm one of the universal donors for platelets. Normally, when someone donates whole blood, they separate out the plasma and the platelets, and then combine batches from different donors. So, a cancer patient might get a batch of platelets that includes the contributions of 4 to 8 donors... That can be hard on the system. Better to get a batch from one donor.
Platelet donation is a longer process... taking about 2.5 hours for me on this first time. That includes cookies and juice at the end... and signing a consent form at the beginning. The actual donation itself took 86 minutes. Quite fascinating. They take out a batch of blood, run it through the centrifuge machine, separate out the plasma & platelets, then the flow reverses and they pump the plasma and blood back into me... This back and forth process happened 7 times and was interesting to say the least!
Would I do it again? It definitely takes a lot longer... But it'll probably go quicker next time cause I won't have to go through the whole consent form thing. I could just donate plasma... that takes 20 minutes... Or I could alternate... The thing with both of these donations, is I can donate more frequently. With plasma, I can donate every week. With platelets, every two weeks... With whole blood... every 56 days. Makes sense to donate more frequently and potentially help more people...
Next time I'll take a lot more calcium the day before and the day after!! Long story... if you ever donate platelets, you'll find out why...