The Impacts of Donating

Rachel Holasek

University of Oklahoma

4-8-16

Hello my name is Rachel Holasek and I would like to tell how my life has been impacted by giving blood. It all starts with my first donation where I donated at my high school during a local blood drive. I was ecstatic to donate. I patiently waited until it was my turn and when they called my name I hoped in the chair ready to go. I watching as the nurse carefully put the needle in my arm thinking if it was going to hurt or not. Luckily it wasn’t bad and time flew by, I have finished my first time donating blood. After feeling amazing after donating I decided I would definitely donate again. Until now I have been donating ever since.

Donating has impacted me in many ways but the main impact is my health. After I give blood I feel awesome and alive and having these feelings I had the thought to stay alive and continue to give blood. The only way I could do that is to stay healthy. I changed my eating habits and active lifestyle to stay healthy and live longer. As I got healthier the OBI nurses at Norman Donor Center suggested I give platelets. At first I was a little scared to give platelets because for one I had no idea what they were and two the donating duration was super long. Sure enough I went ahead and tried it and I loved it. I got multiple calls from OBI to come back and donate platelets again. They said my platelets count was higher than average. I took that as a sign to continue to donate platelets.

            The second important impact from giving blood in my life is the sign that God gave me to donate to the people who need it most. God showed me that donating platelets is my calling to serve people. This way I can serve people who need it to stay live and survive. By knowing I am helping people by just giving blood and platelets makes me happy and willing to donate as many times as I can. Right now I have a total of 10 lifetime donations and 6 being platelets. I hope to keep adding to this number as I go on donating.

I have done research on giving blood and many articles and sites have said that donating blood is good for the heart. I agree, the affects that donating blood has on the body is incredible and helps keep you healthy and your blood clean. By clean I am talking about the cycle of producing blood cells to become filtered and the process of new cells helps us to become clean.

To think on a bigger theme, imagine your blood going to a kid in desperate need of it. To me that just blows my mind how we can take our blood and give it to people we may know or to complete strangers. Giving blood saves lives and if that does not influence you than I do not know what will. Not are you just saving lives but you get benefitted in the process which makes it a win-win situation for you and the person in need. Not to mention you get a free t-shirt as another benefit.

These two impacts are the major impacts of giving blood for me right now and as I will continued to give I am excited to encounter news impacts which I can soon share with my friends and family. Here are a couple of other pictures of past donations.