We needed to know our blood types. It had been a while since I last had an American Red Cross card and I couldn’t remember if I was O, O positive, or O negative. It’s funny how important blood is for humans and not even our primary care physicians care to know. Booking a sailing charter, the captain wanted to know. If we needed a transfusion in a foreign country, it seems important information to have on hand.

So the best way to find out is to donate blood. You find out your blood type and get some complimentary juice and cookies and some people you don’t know, get some blood to hopefully save their lives from whatever awful trauma has put their own blood in short supply. It’s win/win even if you have less energy for activities for a week or so.

O positive by the way. My partner is A+, obviously. Easy to remember. I’m positive I’m O and she’s always been good at tests.

So the American Red Cross is extremely aggressive with getting you back in the chair when your blood proves to be safe and viable. So expect a lot of reminders, phone calls, texts, emails. We booked again not because they joined us but because it seems like a helpful thing to do for people when you don’t have a lot of time to volunteer otherwise.

You get to talking about these things. Probably gloating, that you actually did something considerate. The first time didn’t count anyways, because we were in it for ourselves. So you find out that the real donors are also giving platelets and power blood. Power blood is something where if you have a great blood type, they might take twice the red cells but with half the fluid. I haven’t done it but I think that’s the gist.

To give platelets you have to sit still for 2 hours. They give you an inlet tube and an outlet tube on veins on opposing arms. They have a machine with all sorts of archaic tubes and motorized wheels that pumps saline into your arm, it mixes with the blood and builds a steady circuit of blood flowing out one arm, through an extraction machine and returns it back into the other arm.

You have a personal screen for watching Netflix. Pick your entertainment at the beginning since you’re not permitted to move your arms or hands, other than to squeeze a ball with the extraction arm to keep the pump steady. I chose to watch “All Quiet on the Western Front”, good enough to remind you why people might need blood, watching all these people bleeding out for the entire duration.

The Red Cross has an app, who doesn’t? They give you points for donating which you can use to purchase donation branded swag. What’s interesting is that you might get more points if you deliver a more beneficial load. For instance, I get bonus points just for having O+ blood since it’s somewhat more versatile to patients than other types.

So you’re interested after a donation about how much they extracted, any notable details about your yield or quality, and most importantly, how many gift points did you earn?

I donated Sunday, I had a call from the Red Cross while sitting in a work meeting, I didn’t answer. They don’t waste any time in trying to book that next appointment.

My message said my platelets were outside the usual quantity and they wouldn’t be able to use them. That before I give again they will test me in advance, it’s possible I won’t be a useful donor for platelets. Will have to stick with whole blood donations.

I checked the app, the acceptable range for platelets is 150,000 to 450,000 uL (some concentration of litres or millilitres). 60,000 seemed noticeably outside the range so I looked it up. Don’t do that, the internet has awful news about any deviation of health metrics. Everything is a sign of cancer or death when you go far enough down the possibilities.

Red Cross called me again the next day. They don’t want me to test before my next donation. They want me to come in as soon as possible to retest. I’m in Arkansas which is not where I live so it’s going to need to be when I get back from my trip.

So their urgency doesn’t make me feel any better about my lack of clotting particles in my blood. The internet says I should have issues stopping bleeding when cut or bruise easily. I’ve never had issues with bleeding. I inspect my body for bruises, nothing, I punch my leg hard, to see if maybe a bruise will form the next day, it doesn’t. I don’t seem to have the traits of someone running out of platelets.

Maybe a false reading, the internet says unlikely but possible. I wonder if their urgency is more to verify if the two units of platelets and 1 unit of plasma could still be useful. A count as low as mine would not be therapeutic and would need to be discarded. The app reports my donations are currently in storage. My appointment is Tuesday, if I’m good, maybe they’ll take it out of the cooler and let their machines have another taste.

It’s interesting how the dread of eminent death shifts based on what you believe is the most likely thing to kill you. Is it the boat you’re going to sleep on? The rental car you’re trying to get familiar with, that has seemingly enormous blind spots? The turbulent flight? Your friends who recently died or unexpected heart attacks or died in their sleep?

Middle age is the craziest with thoughts of death. You recognize that it’ll be any minute now, or in another 50 or 60 years. You have no idea but you seem to come to terms with it and fear everything at the same time.

Most of my assets have designated beneficiaries but I still need to get a will going. Being prepared to die, seems to decrease the overall anxiety of never being able to know when it will happen. It reminds me that I need to continue de-cluttering as well. Why do I have so much stuff?

I’m assuming this is all deeply embedded biological instinct. This is why animals find their routines and keep their dens clean. It’s why occasionally they eat their young when they’re starving. An awareness that things could turn for the worst at some unpredictable point and you’re going to be obnoxious about it to all creatures around you.

What I’d like to be is zen about the whole thing. I literally have no bucket list or am working on anything critical to society. I don’t have much of a desire to, society itself, fame, history, all of it is a flash in a pan. Literally none of it matters other than trying to make things better in the moments we exist. I just want things to be as decent as possible for any being that is experiencing existence.

What gives me gratification is whatever I can do to not make things worse. Neutral or better than if I wasn’t in the room is what I strive for. It’s a meager goal in life but it’s a challenge to stay consistent. There is an old timey animal lacking the back of my mind like everyone else.

One thing I very much enjoy in life is being with family or friends, eat delicious food, and imbibe enough to keep things loose. One possible cause of low platelets is an underperforming liver paired with alcohol and so that’s another problem.