My body has betrayed me many times.
I’ve become accustomed to being opened up and stitched.
I frequently boast that my bank account might be empty but I carry my wealth in my body. The titanium implants in my spine, I often joke, can be melted down and sold in case of an emergency, like buying a ticket and moving to a country where the lights stay on.
I’ve come to relish anything new. I get to learn when my system misfires and have made it my mission to understand medical and pharmaceutical terms, no matter who throws a new one at me.
It helps that I studied aromatherapy and at one stage even registered with the Allied Health Professions Council.
Last week though, the clinical/intellectual interest turned emotional when I had to receive a blood transfusion as a matter of urgency.
And then another, and another, and eventually it was five with the possibility of, yes, another.
A lifetime vegan, vegetarian because of religious reasons (Hindu) and vegan because I’m lactose intolerant, means I’ve always flirted with anaemia and fobbed it off with the usual leafy greens, pulses and, of course, beetroot, once hailed as a miracle cure by a certain minister of health.
Many moons ago when my system was hale and hearty, I even donated blood, and not just for the free biscuits and tea which served as an incentive.
Last week I saw the other side of blood donations when my haemoglobin levels plummeted dangerously low.
That’s when someone possibly saved my life, someone who doesn’t know me, someone I will never get to meet and thank.
I’m referring to that A-positive blood donor who gave me the health to write this piece.
Actually, five transfusions and so it’s five people, if not more, that I need to thank.
Blood donors save lives all the time.
As the media we mostly write about this during peak holiday periods when traffic is crazy and accidents rife.
So often the South African National Blood Service appeals to the public to donate and save lives because blood stocks are critically low.
I’ve understood the urgency, but it’s different when suddenly you are the one in need.
When your well-being, perhaps even continued existence, depends on it.
I must admit that given my penchant for shape-shifter and medical horror stories, I had thoughts about possibly taking on the persona of the donor, or the dreams or the bad habits of the person/persons who donated the blood.
Seeing the blood bag loaded onto the drip trolley and then running down the tube and into my vein felt so intimate, uncomfortably so.
I had no choice but to take in something that came out of someone else’s body.
The hospital indemnity form explained the possible side effects of the transfusion but it didn’t prepare me for how emotional I would feel.
Someone was sharing something so uniquely personal with me.
Over the years I might have had many transfusions during the ops which have left me with an assortment of surgical tattoos on my anatomy.
But then I was unaware of anything and never spared a thought for it once I was out of theatre.
Now though it was in my face.
The slow drip of the deep tomato sauce red life-giving liquid harvested from another body linked me forever to that person.
I don’t know who you are, but you made a difference in my life and I want to thank you and everyone else who so freely gives a part of your existence to another.
It made me think of all the children waiting for a bone marrow match so they can fight leukaemia and hopefully reach adulthood.
It made me think of organ donors and their final act of selflessness, even in death, and it made me think of how we can change lives in such simple yet profound ways.
I can’t donate blood, but I can volunteer to help in other ways and one such way is to encourage others to set aside their fears and give someone else a new lease of life. As South Africans we are renowned for our culture of ubuntu.
And so, my contribution will be to encourage others to be blood, bone marrow or organ donors to give one family a few more days of hope and preferably a few more years of life and love.
The SANBS says only one in about 140 people are blood donors.
Its website says South Africa is almost always close to running out of blood stocks, placing thousands of lives at risk every single day.
Someday you might be in my situation and need a transfusion, so do the right thing and save a life.
The South African National Blood Service can be contacted at 0800 119 031.
The Independent on Saturday