Blood Donation & A Hero Complex

I think it’s fairly common knowledge that I have a bit of a hero complex. I think it came from watching He-Man when I was little. He-Man was the greatest. I still watch it from time to time on QUBO. At any rate, I’ve always thought it was cool to be able to help people out in any way. You know what, maybe it’s not a complex: maybe it’s just that I like to help people and actually feel that reward that people say you get when you do nice things.

As life would have it, one of my cousins needed a kidney transplant last summer and his situation was rather serious. I’d long forgotten what my blood type was, but I surely wanted to figure out a way to see if I could help him (having the same blood type is the first part of that process). I decided to donate blood to find out what my type was. Figured I’d get the information I wanted and be able to help someone at the same time.

I wasn’t the same type as my cousin (thankfully, someone was and he got a new kidney), but I felt really good about giving blood. It didn’t help my cousin, but it helped someone. That someone may have a cousin who’s as grateful as I am to whomever donated a kidney to my cousin. I didn’t realize the importance of giving blood (and organs) until I had my direct experience.

Since then I’ve really gotten into blood donation and I try to increase awareness whenever I can. I wear my blood donor T-shirt when I know I’ll be out in public, as opposed to wearing it around the house. Matter of fact, I wore it to Christmas dinner at my aunt’s house where my entire family (opposite side of the cousin who needed the kidney) gathered. I got a stuffed bear when I donated Monday. I put the bear in my coat pocket and went to work Tuesday. Of course people asked what in the world I was doing with a bear in my pocket. I got to tell them, and I increased awareness. Maybe, just maybe, someone donates because of that. And a life (actually, it’s three) gets saved - or at the very least, substantially improved - because of a bear I got Monday and a decision I made Tuesday.

Ah, Monday. I’d given a double donation and was driving home. For some reason I started thinking about all the missed opportunities I’ve had to give blood throughout my life. I thought about the fact that I could have championed the cause through my time as an anchor at FAMU’s TV station in undergrad. As an LGB scholar. As a member of Poison. As a three-term BGSA president. As a two-term representative in COGS. I thought about all those missed opportunities, all those people who’ve died because of those missed opportunities, and I almost started to cry (which I haven’t done in two and a half years). I felt absolutely terrible, and I feel terrible now thinking about it.

I also felt terrible because I knew blood donation wouldn’t have gotten a second thought from me if my cousin didn’t get sick. I rail on people (mostly celebrities) for only caring about things that somehow affect them directly, but I did the same thing. Oh well: I guess in the end, all valor is valor.

Donating blood also did something else for me: it made me take more stock into my own health. Now I eat better than ever before, I work out more than ever, and I have a renewed focus on being…discriminant. We’ll leave it at that. I don’t want anything risking my ability to give blood, especially not anything I could prevent - or even worse, allowed to happen.

So here I sit, a man with a cause…and that same desire to be the hero that he had when he was five years old. Yes, I want to save the world…a little bit at a time. I know I can’t do it all, but I can certainly do something. If we all do something, the world will be so much better off. When I go back in August (double donations require a 16-week wait), I’ll have another chance to help someone with my blood. While I’m waiting, I have many chances to help someone with my words and my actions. Chances I’ve missed too many times already. Chances I won’t miss again.

Most everyone reading this has the same chances I do. I can’t and won’t fault anyone for not taking those chances, but I will hope some people will. More importantly, there are people out there whose hope far outweighs mine. Mine is to satisfy some internal need. Theirs is a need to live.

There’s a little pain involved, but I promise you the pain I felt as I was driving Monday was worse than anything I’ve ever felt at the blood center. As I said above, that won’t happen again. Will. Not. Happen. I couldn’t live with that - and more importantly, three other people couldn’t either.

I’ll leave by stating a belief of mine: that the biggest part of saving ourselves is saving each other.