Paying back 12 years of life-saving transfusions

“The best laid plans o’ mice an’ men,” wrote poet Robbie Burns long ago, “gang aft agley.”

Canadian Blood Services and I laid plans for celebrating the one-year anniversary of opening the new plasma clinic, this coming Wednesday, June 22. Alas, life had other plans. Things went agley.

I wanted to be the first plasma donor, when the clinic opened in 2021. My wife had been receiving plasma transfusion for 12 years, while she had chronic lymphatic leukemia (CLL). The plasma contained immune-globulin, antibodies distilled from about 1000 donors per transfusion, to supplement her weakened immune system.

I wanted to repay some of that debt, if I could.

So I was indeed the first potential donor through the doors. But I reckoned without the commitment of Canadian Blood Services nurses to making sure that no harm came to me — or to any other donor.

Age was not a handicap. There is no upper age limit anymore.

And the thing that had prevented me from donating whole blood for the last 40 years or so — having had malaria as a child -- was no longer an obstacle. Because the malaria parasite — if I still harboured it – lives inside red blood cells. Plasma donations do not take your blood cells at all; they return the blood cells to you and keep only the pale fluid that carries those cells through your body.

But my medical history showed a heart attack 11 years before. Too risky, the nurse in charge decided, and referred me to the Blood Services medical consultants.

Who turned me down?

It took three months of letters and phone calls and lobbying to get that decision overturned.

The nurse who called me sounded overjoyed. “I’ve just got their ruling,” she gushed. “You’re eligible!”

I’ve been donating plasma every two weeks (with occasional exceptions) ever since.

And that schedule would have had me in a chair, this coming Wednesday morning. For health and safety reasons, Canadian Blood Services does not normally allow visitors into the clinic. Just staff and donors. But for this one occasion, they would allow some media personnel to film and interview donors.

I would have been one of those donors, the clinic’s poster boy.

Fame at last!

Oops.

Apparently I spent too much time in the sun during my younger years. Hatless. Sea breeze in my hair, Boating the waters of the Salish Sea: Vancouver harbour, Howe Sound, Indian Arm… With sunlight not only hitting me directly, but reflecting up off the dancing waters…

As a result, I’ve had five surgeries, over the years, to remove patches of skin from my scalp and face that got too much sun. Actinic keratoses, technically. Pre-cancerous cells, more generally.

The last round, I had 11 bits excised, and 49 stitches. I looked like something assembled by Dr. Frankenstein.

Guess when my next round of surgery came up? Right — exactly one week before the plasma clinic’s anniversary celebration. So I won’t be in a chair next Wednesday. But maybe you can be.

At this time, Canadian donors provide only about a quarter of Canada’s plasma needs. The rest must be imported, mostly from the U.S.

Canadian Blood Services now has five plasma-only clinics across Canada: Sudbury, Lethbridge, Brampton, Orleans and Kelowna.

We in the Okanagan are a vital link in keeping Canadians alive.

Plasma is refined into a variety of components. Albumins, which maintain the viscosity of blood. Fibrinogens, which help blood clot after surgeries or accidents. And three types of globulins — of which the most important is immune globulin, the stuff that kept my wife alive for 12 years.

These products, says the blood.ca website, “are used to treat patients with a variety of life-threatening conditions, such as immunodeficiency disorders, autoimmune or neurological disorders, liver disease, patients being treated for shock and serious burns, and congenital bleeding disorders such as hemophilia.”

Giving blood products, especially plasma, costs you nothing, but gives you a very special kind of satisfaction – the knowledge that you have changed someone’s life.

Even if I’m not there, don’t let things

“gang agley.” Make a plasma donation.

You can find the Canadian Blood Services plasma clinic in the Orchard Park Mall, at the corner of Dilworth and Springfield

Roads. They’re open from 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., most weekdays; shorter hours Saturdays and Mondays.

To book an appointment, go to blood.ca, or phone 1-888-2DONATE (1-888-236-6283.)

And maybe one of these days, our donation appointments will overlap, and we’ll get to meet each other.