Bent But Not Broken Blood Drive Update

As Jodi mentioned in her last post we're having a blood drive in an effort to give back some of what Avery needed to get her through the surgery. Sign-ups have been slowly trickling in, but we're still a few people shy of getting our target number of fifteen donors.

My company has one of these old-timey looking popcorn machines that they let employees use every Friday. The company buys the popcorn, all you have to do is set up shop and pop the stuff (and clean up everything after) and you can sell popcorn for $2 a bag. The only conditions are:

• You can only send one email to the office promoting your event and one email afterward thanking everyone (so as to not spam / pester everyone)
• The money has to go to a registered charity

So, in an effort to drum up donors and donations we held a Popcorn Friday in support of Canadian Blood Services today and Princess Pants and The Dude came to work with me this afternoon to help sell popcorn.

My introduction email explained a bit about Avery and how she needed so much blood for her surgery and that we were looking for six more donors to round out our list or cash from popcorn sales to donate to Canadian Blood Services. 

Last night, Jodi got this awesome idea to make up t-shirts with pictures of Avery's x-rays on them promoting the blood drive. The kids wore theirs to school and I wore mine to work. They looked awesome and they were a big hit! 

I took the kids out of school around 1:00 and brought them into work and we started popping popcorn a little before 2:00. Someone had already given me a $20 donation because they were out of the office for the afternoon so we were off to a great start. Once the smell of the popcorn started wafting through the office it didn't take long for the donations to start rolling in. 

By 3:00 we had sold a lot of popcorn and a co-worker suggested that we take some upstairs on the rolling table and see if the office on the 3rd floor wanted any (he tipped us off that they were always in the mood for popcorn). 

So we trekked upstairs with eleven bags of popcorn and visited another company and less than 10 minutes later we only had one bag left! 

We sold a few more before the day came to a close for us (around 4:00) and the final tally was nothing short of amazing:

• $238 ($245) if you include the 5€ note someone gave us
• Two blood donors for the drive on May 14
• One blood donor who can't make the 14th but will donate at another point in the week

 I even had people tell me they would be away on Friday but would bring in donations on Monday!

All in all, it was an amazing success. The generosity of the community is quite something. I am very fortunate to have such wonderful and caring neighbours.

In case you didn't do the math, we're still in need of 3 donors! 

Please email me if you can donate on May 14th in Waterloo (6:35pm, 7:05pm, 7:10pm spots available). 

If you can donate but on a different day, or if you're out of town and you'd like to donate, just book your appointment with Canadian Blood Services (http://blood.ca) and let me know and I'll add you to our list of Bent But Not Broken Supporters. 

Thank you, all!

~ Andrew

It's In You To Give

I want to talk about what happened last week and the profound impact it's had on me, and how I feel about charity and giving.

A few months ago a Facebook friend of ours had to have surgery. Brain surgery. Real dangerous stuff. He's the real estate agent who drove us around for two days back in 2009 and showed us almost 30 homes and ultimately helped us buy the house we have lived in for the past 5 years. He even did the final walk through so my wife and I wouldn't have to fly in from Ottawa to do it. We've stayed in touch on Facebook since then and followed the changes in his life, as he and his wife had their first child and then proudly announced earlier this year that another one was on the way.

During his surgery he almost died. He started to bleed and wouldn't stop. There was something like a 1% chance of this happening and it did. It took blood donations from 60 people to save his life. They pumped 12 litres of blood into him to keep him alive. 12 litres. His body only holds 4. He came out of surgery without a single drop of the blood he went in with - 3 times over.

Healing and grateful to be alive he decided to give a little back and hold a blood drive down at the local Canadian Blood Services location in Waterloo and he asked all his friends on Facebook if they would consider donating.

I had low blood iron for the longest time and then was on some pretty fun medications after that and had never donated before. Being med free and with a healthy hemoglobin level right now the only thing stopping me was a healthy fear of needles and queasiness at the sight of blood, which seemed like really lame-ass excuses. So I booked my first ever appointment to donate blood for Tuesday of last week.

Then, in what can only be described as a karmic twist of the Universe, the Monday before my blood donation appointment Jodi and I found out that Avery does not weigh enough to bank her own blood before her surgery. You see, she has severe scoliosis and needs to have spinal surgery in the new year to have metal rods cemented and screwed into her spine to keep it straight. It's a 10 hour surgery and if not everything goes as planned she'll need blood. Better it's her own than someone else's too. Only now that was not possible.

Jodi cannot donate because of some funky rule that prohibits donations from people who lived in France for more than 3 months during certain years. Seeing as she lived there for a year during one of those years she's ineligible (something about mad cow disease and not being able to test for it until after you're dead). I will be tested for compatibility (blood type, antibodies, etc...) and if I'm a match I will provide a directed donation to have on hand for Avery's surgery. I'll only be able to donate a couple litres though. A worst case scenario would see her needing more than what I can offer.

That means there'll be blood on hand from the blood bank. I really hope none of it will be needed, but it's awfully reassuring that it's there if it is in fact needed.

So on Tuesday I went in and donated blood for the first time. It was almost completely painless, everyone was very supportive, and I got to have juice and cookies afterwards. My friend was even there talking with all the people donating and thanking them. If I'm being completely honest, I felt really good about it. The best way I can describe it was that I felt like I was making an immediate and profound impact on somebody's life. I went home afterwards proudly sporting my "First Time Donor" pin and feeling great (though getting out of bed the next morning was a challenge. I was really tired!)

I've been telling people this story ever since and am encouraging everyone to go find out if they are able to give blood, and if they are to please donate. It makes a difference. It saved my friend's life and could very well save Avery's.

~ Dad