Wednesday, July 5, 2023

#49 - a Platelet donation

Here is the billions story .. The other day I was contacted by the head of hematology dept Dr Rajalakshmi saying there is an urgent need of platelets at St John's hospital Bangalore for a cancer patient. Considering this as a God given opportunity I decided to visit St John's blood bank. 

I donated 350 billions of platelets at St. John's hospital on 5 July 2023. My fortyninth blood donation.. 😁

In the platelet apheresis machine it starts at 0, then goes to 1 x 10** 11, then 2 x 10**11 and then 3 x 10**11 and finally 3.2 x 10 **11. It takes about 45 minutes when the whole blood from our body goes into the apheresis machine and only platelets are taken out, about 300 ml platelets total. Two and a half hours I spent at the hospital, right from tests etc.. 

Each patient needs upto 75 ml platelets at a time and so my 300 ml platelets gets used by 4 patients or 1 patient over 4 times.. A whole blood donation on the other hand, gets used only by 1 patient, whichever component he needs, either platelets or RBC or plasma and other components are wasted.

Apheresis is thus a very efficient procedure. 🙂🙂🙏

Earlier with platelet apheresis, after 2 days I used to get a small low back ache. But after the end Feb 23 WBC apheresis and the platelet apheresis now, I have had no low back ache.  The daily consumption of cod liver oil capsules has been having a positive impact on my health of late. Thank God. Waiting for the 50th donation, which in all likelihood will be again a platelet apheresis..

George..

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