The other Friday night, I was paged to call the Laboratory - sounds scary, but everyone knows what that page means - they need blood.
We do not have a way to store blood here on the ship, but we have the next best thing - 350 people from all over the world with all different blood types just lining up to share their blood with someone (well, not really, sometimes it is like pulling teeth - pulling blood? . . . really hard to convince them to have someone shove a needle in their arm.) I am not sure how many people there are on the list, but we do several surgeries a day and there has not been a problem so far with getting blood when needed. Considering that Red Cross will most likely never let me donate again after living in West Africa, I like to do what I can now :)
In the two years I have been on the ship I think I have been called four or five times. It is different here on the ship - you do not give your blood to Red Cross knowing that someday it will be used, you know that it is being taken over to the other side of the ship and used within the next few hours. There is a feeling of connection, even if you do not know the patient personally, you know they are there and God is doing something in their life. Sometimes it is blood for a regular surgery, sometimes it is an emergency because someone has started to bleed during surgery, sometimes it is for a patient who is recovering, but is having trouble. But it is a different to know that there is an immediate need and you are helping to fill it.
So, if you ever come to Mercy Ship and stay for awhile, be ready! Someone out there may need your blood!
We do not have a way to store blood here on the ship, but we have the next best thing - 350 people from all over the world with all different blood types just lining up to share their blood with someone (well, not really, sometimes it is like pulling teeth - pulling blood? . . . really hard to convince them to have someone shove a needle in their arm.) I am not sure how many people there are on the list, but we do several surgeries a day and there has not been a problem so far with getting blood when needed. Considering that Red Cross will most likely never let me donate again after living in West Africa, I like to do what I can now :)
In the two years I have been on the ship I think I have been called four or five times. It is different here on the ship - you do not give your blood to Red Cross knowing that someday it will be used, you know that it is being taken over to the other side of the ship and used within the next few hours. There is a feeling of connection, even if you do not know the patient personally, you know they are there and God is doing something in their life. Sometimes it is blood for a regular surgery, sometimes it is an emergency because someone has started to bleed during surgery, sometimes it is for a patient who is recovering, but is having trouble. But it is a different to know that there is an immediate need and you are helping to fill it.
So, if you ever come to Mercy Ship and stay for awhile, be ready! Someone out there may need your blood!
1 comment:
wow, that is so interesting. thanks for sharing!
dorothy
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