I’ve been donating blood since I was in high school. My dad is a long-time blood donor, so I started giving because he did. Turns out he donates because his dad, my Grandpa Bill, was a long-time blood donor.
In my early 20s I set a goal to donate the largest feasible volume that was meaningful to me as a homebrewer: a keg. A standard half-barrel keg is half of a barrel (31 gallons), so 15.5 gallons or 124 pints of beer. Or blood.
I donated blood yesterday and checked my stats: 53 units with the Red Cross, plus 10 that I donated with LifeSource during the periods I lived in Chicago. That puts me one unit into the second half of my keg.
Donating every 56 days – as frequently as possible – would be 6.5 times per year. Allowing for illness and finding convenient blood drives, it seems more reasonable to shoot for 4 times per year (I’ve averaged about 3.5 units/year since I turned 18). If I can keep that up, I’ll finish in about 16 years, when I’m 51.
Maybe then I’ll switch to donating platelets. My searches for record-setting blood donors turn up platelet donors. Platelets can be given more frequently (24x/year), requiring more time, putting up bigger numbers, and having a greater impact on people in need. Maxing out platelet donations seems like the big leagues. I won’t have little kids then; perhaps that will be my second act? My dad has given platelets so I’d be following in his path again.
16 years is a long time. I hope my health will hold up well enough to keep the streak alive. We’ll see if this blog post is still up in 2036 or whenever I fill the keg.
One reply on “Halfway to a keg of blood”
I gave blood yesterday for the first time since July, having paused for a few months pre- and post-kidney donation. I’ve donated twenty units of blood since I wrote this blog post five years ago. That’s four units per year, right on track with my original forecast.
I’m up to 73 units with the Red Cross and 83 total. Ten years to go at this pace! This is a nice way to mark the passage of time. I hope my good health persists.