Save a life - take 2

When I was studying, the Blood Bank lot used to make regular events of giving blood at our Technikon. My friend Pierre and I used to delight in these. He was studying Civil Engineering with a lot of big strong men - my Life Sciences building was just down the way. We'd run across to where the bloodletting was happening in his building and watch the big strong blokes keel over after getting up too quickly. Yeah, small things amused small minds even back then. :-)

It's been many years since I gave blood. It's not as if blood banks are easy to find - they don't set up shop in one place and stay there all the time. Now and then there will be a mobile unit trundling around a shopping centre or other public place.

But here's the thing. I may have to wait until I'm dead to donate an organ - but blood is renewable. I've got clean, safe blood of a not-too-common kind. There's likely a need for what I can give, yet I'm hoarding mine. OK - occasionally I offer a bit of it up to my Land Rover, but Olivia can't really use it.

I think it's time I started to share.