2026 52 Card Project: Week 31: Blood

[pegkerr]

Rob died of leukemia. The end was fast, but he went through a LOT of units of blood in those final three months.




I was both incredibly grateful to the donors and grieved that I couldn’t donate myself: I was under a lifetime ban that had been enacted in 1999 to guard against the threat of Mad Cow disease, due to my semester abroad in England in college.

But the rules have changed and the ban has been lifted. And this past week, knowing of the critical nationwide shortage, I donated blood for the first time in 27 years.

Everything went very smoothly. I have never been bothered by needles, and in fact, I donated quite a lot before the ban came down, and even (when I was incredibly broke in my twenties) helped stretch my meager budget for a while by selling plasma. I filled a bag in five and a half minutes and was in and out within an hour. I've been rather bushed for the last couple of days, and conked out pretty hard that night. But now I feel fine, and I plan to go back once my body has replenished my supply again. It feels as though I am paying it forward, in Rob's memory.

Please, give if you can. The nation is down to a one-day supply.

Image description: Top, semi-transparent: logo for American Red Cross. Background: a clinic interior with snacks set on a counter underneath a blood donation poster. Lower left corner: A woman (Peg) donating blood. Center right: a filled bag with blood. Above that: test tubes with samples of blood.

Blood



Click on the links to see the 2026, 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022 and 2021 52 Card Project galleries.

Comments

[pameladean]

I was under the same ban, plus another one about people who slept with men who slept with other men. These are both gone, but I'm currently anemic. It's very annoying. Thank you for stepping up. My grandmother was a nurse who travelled with bloodmobiles in the sixties and seventies.

P.

[ndrosen]

It was good of you to step up and donate blood.

{blows a kiss}