Orcas Islanders will have the opportunity to give blood this Thursday, July 30 from noon to 6 p.m. at the Eastsound Fire Hall. The drive is sponsored by the Puget Sound Blood Center, which reports, “When people need blood for surgery, trauma care, cancer treatment or hundreds of other reasons, we will be here for them. When they need a bone marrow match or tissue to replace burned skin, we will be here for them.”
The wife of a leukemia patient who recently underwent successful chemotherapy treatment wrote to all those who had given blood in his name: “With all the blood he has received from other people we are seeing firsthand what a gift blood is — we wish we knew each person the precious blood, lifegiving fluid, is coming from and knew a little of their story. Such a symbol of shared humanity.
“Now, we are envisioning the beauty and diversity of blood, regrowing healthy precious lifegiving fluid filled with incredible cells each fulfilling their own inner nature and instructions: red blood cells carrying oxygen, platelets protecting the body from bleeding, neutrophils protecting from infection. A healing of the waters within, all those renegade cells gone and leaving room for health to return.”
The Puget Sound Blood Center provides “medical care to thousands of patients with sickle cell disease, thalassemia, hemophilia and other blood disorders. And our scientists are doing advanced blood-related research … that has tripled the storage life of blood components, reduced blood shortages, added 30 years to hemophilia patients’ lives, and more.”
