Giving blood a one-way street

Re: ‘Mad cow’ deferral still in effect for blood donations, July 4. I’ve got some news about donating blood. Monday might be my 261st donation (133 whole blood, 128 platelets/plasma, if anybody’s counting, and I am) — but if I go to the dentist tomorrow, or fly off to the Mayan Riviera for the weekend, or have a scratch on my arm, or end up in jail for 72 hours, or get a blood transfusion, or have acupuncture, sex with a man, or sex with somebody whose sexual history I don’t know, or take some new pills, or do a lot of other things, I won’t be able to donate on Monday.

And guess what? Even if I don’t do any of those things, I may get a call telling me not to bother coming in, since somebody with a very rare and immediate lifesaving-emergency blood type (I’m O-Neg, too), wants my spot. The last scenario has happened to me once in the last six years since I started driving 80-plus kilometres to Carling and Churchill avenues.

So, while I also sometimes like to consider that my donations are a way of “giving back,” it’s a one-way street. They’ll take my blood, if I meet “their” standards. Tough, but there it is. Doug Phillips, Smiths Falls