The same heart
beats in every human breast: boom-pachak-boom-pachak
ceaselessly for a lifetime.
The same blood (Red Gold, I call it)
courses through the chambers, arteries and veins of truck-drivers and tycoons.
There is no difference between their biological plumbing system. Like air and
water, mosquitoes and viruses, blood does its job without bothering about who’s
from communities major or minor, a scheduled caste, tribal, Jew, Palestinian or
politician.
My father was
neither tycoon nor truck-driver. When he was sick and needed blood transfusions,
my sister and I donated our permissible quota so he could get his. Unlike in Bollywood, our blood didn’t
directly flow through a tube into Baba’s arm.
At the blood-collection centre, I was
asked my name, sex (prefer ‘gender’), and whether I’d suffered from jaundice,
typhoid or malaria recently. They measured my height and weight (those were
innocent days; I was excited when the needle on the scale turned to the right).
A drop of blood was squeezed from a prick in my left middle finger and tested
to check whether I was anaemic and my blood-group (‘O’ for ordinary).
I was made to lie down on a trolley
with a mattress, pillow and sheet. Nowadays there are reclining, upholstered sofas.
Still, I carry my own thin tuwaal to
place my head on, because I feel icky sharing public furniture with unknown
entities. I’m eccentric.
A technician came and rubbed cool
alcohol (I didn’t lick it) with a swab of cotton on the inside of my elbow (that’s
why I couldn’t lick it, unreachable location). The poke didn’t hurt much, but
the sight of my tambdey-tambdey ragat surging
through a transparent tube and climbing up to the container hanging from a
metal stand hypnotized me.
Since then, every time I’ve donated,
I’ve waited for that fascinating moment. And later dwelled on mera khoon kiski nassom mein beheta hoga?
Blood-banks aren’t always near patients.
But one can donate blood at ‘camps’ wherever and whenever convenient. Why wait
for a muhurta or emergency to save a life?
Blood-donation doesn’t take more than
twenty minutes. Later, kind nurses and whoever else is present offer fruit
juice and sweet biscuits. Whilst consuming them, I wonder what motivates the
other donors present. Most people donate either because a friend/ colleague/
neighbour/ relative needs blood or because they are altruistic. There are those
who give (specially rare groups) blood for money: India mein sub kuch hota hai. If it saves a life, que sera, sera.
Once the blood is collected from a
donor, it’s tested for diseases which could be passed on to a recipient. A
responsible Blood Bank Laboratory will inform a donor that may have, say, HIV.
You can’t buy blood, but you have to pay for the tests and processes.
I once asked the haematologist what
happened to my donated-blood afterwards. He told me, anti-clotting chemicals
kept the blood from, well, clotting. He showed me one bag/ packet which he said
was mine, based on the records. It looked like pale urine. “Hain kittein?” I asked him. It didn’t
resemble my blood; I’d seen it myself.
“That’s plasma,” he said. “The red
blood cells have been removed from it.”
He added, I gaped: “Whole blood can
be transfused, but more often, blood is separated into various components and
used depending on what recipient patients need. Everything’s kept in sterile
conditions and at low temperatures. The blood-component is warmed before use.
Some components can be preserved longer than others.” Which means the 350 ml
that I donated is useful to more than one human-being! (Feeling smug.)
“A patient can donate his own blood
for his own use before an elective surgery. There’s a method by which only the
plasma can be extracted and the rest of the blood returned to the donor. Also,
regular users (think thalassemia) are better off now than a few decades ago. Reactions,
if any, to transfusions are better handled.”
Science is as close to magic as can
be.
Yet, with all the rocking technology
available, and money, the only factory that manufactures this precious fluid is
the human body which takes just two quick days to replace the (donated) RBCs.
I’m wallowing in satisfaction: my
blood has saved many a life.
Just thinking… if an aazaaree manees who has received my
blood gets well enough to donate to someone who in turn donates to another
donor, etc, will a teensy-weensy bit of me eventually traverse the globe? Possible
with stem-cells.
(Feedback: sheelajaywant@yahoo.co.in)
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