The living blood bank

On the Africa Mercy, we have quite a unique system to provide blood for patients who need blood transfusions...WE, the crew are the blood bank. The lab keeps a list of crew who have provided recent samples and are fit to donate. They cross-match the donors with patients who are identified as highly likely to need a blood transfusion the following day (there are always emergencies, but most of the transfusions can be predicted based on the type of surgery the patient will have). The donor will receive a notice on their door the night before they are needed to give blood to remind them to drink lots of fluids and be prepared to come down to donate.


Last year, I made every effort to donate blood during the Togo outreach...but, unfortunately I was never able to. The problem is that my blood type is common among Americans and not so common among Africans...so we have an abundance of donors on the ship, but not so many transfusions of that type are needed. I decided to give it a shot again this year and provide regular samples to the lab just in case it was needed. I even received a couple of notices on my door, but the patients never ended up needing transfusions....until last week.


I received another notice to drink lots of fluids and be prepared to donate, but I didn't get my hopes up this time. Then, around 10am, one of the lab techs found me and said, "Ok, come down. We need your blood!"

All the areas where they usually take people to donate were occupied, so we ended up going to the recovery room. I hopped up on a stretcher and happily held out my arm...I think I was abnormally excited about having them stick a needle in my arm, but I had been waiting for this opportunity for over a year. Needless to say, there was quite a bit of pent-up excitement now that it was finally happening :)

After giving the blood, the lab tech handed me a can of Coke and some cookies and told me I couldn't leave until I drank all of it...I willingly obeyed :) Then, with my excessively large bandage wrapped around my arm, I headed over to the OR office and met a friend there who is able to escort non-OR staff to observe the operations. He graciously agreed to let me go down and visit the OR where the patient was receiving my blood.


We walked into the OR and Dr. Gary looked up from the scalpel. He asked if I was the blood donor and then thanked me for donating. He pointed toward the suction canister to show me all the blood the man had lost. It was quite a bit.

A few days later, I met the man who had received my blood. Mohamed is 58 years old and has had a maxillary tumor growing for the last twenty years. It had become very large and painful, so he was excited when he received his patient card to have the tumor removed.

Despite Mohamed's large blood loss during surgery, he did not have any further complications and was able to make a good recovery. I had the chance to visit him in D Ward a few days after he had his surgery. I approached him and shook his hand, explaining why I had wanted to meet him. A big grin appeared on his face when he realized I was his blood donor. He shook my hand again and thanked me for helping him. It was a really special moment.

I have to say, it's so different actually meeting the person who receives your blood instead of just giving a bag of blood to be put in a refrigerator at a blood bank. It was a bit strange thinking about my blood pumping through Mohamed's heart and veins...but amazing at the same time...