h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Donate blood. I did it for the first time yesterday and it was quite fulfilling to be told that with a measly pint of my red stuff I helped save THREE lives. Try it.

Unfortunately, they won't take mine anymore....

When I was in school, we used to donate blood every 6 weeks on the dot because they'd give you a free t-shirt each time -- great way to stretch the laundry!


Mikey

If you REALLY want to 'feel like a hero', go on the Anthony Nolan Bone Marrow Donors List - if you are called on to donate bone marrow, you can personally save someone's life when no-one else can. It gives one's life a whole new meaning.

You can also donate plasma more often than you can give blood, and it's a great way of getting over a fear of needles!

I can't give blood as they don't like my steroid inhalor. And for someone who believes in recycling it's something I really wanted to do.

A friend of mine wasn't allowed to give blood because he's gay...what are people's thoughts on this?

I understand why the practice was introduced, but surely everyone's blood is tested, so it seems a little outdated. Though there's nothing stopping us from lying and saying we're hetero (they can't find that out from your blood can they! )

Yeah - exactly - I understand why the rule *was* there to start off with, but surely there's another way to do it? My friend and his boyfriend both went with a group of friends to donate, and they were really hurt when they were told that they weren't allowed to.

Given the rise in AIDs among heteros, it seems particularly ill founded...

They won't take my blood any more, either, but my body is still acceptable to the nearest teaching hospital when I die.
If you're younger than me, can I urge you to carry an organ donor card

Carrying an organ donor card, for me, would be a very scary thing - I know this may sound silly, but facing your own mortality like that...well, it's something I can't quite come to terms with *yet* - I know that it would the right thing to do and the good, caring thing to do, but the prospect scares me silly.

I'm completely shocked that the Blood Donor Service won't allow homosexuals to give blood... if its on the grounds of being in a high risk group;with HIV and AIDS raising in the heterosexual population faster than the homosexual one, they may as well say people who have sex can't give blood.

Carry an organ donor card but you've also got to tell your loved ones that you want to donate, obviously they're the ones the doctors ask.

does any one know the legal position on living wills in the UK?

Donor cards don't make any difference anyway. It's still up to your next of kin. My mum says she'd say no if they asked her, even though the thought of being buried with anything useful still inside me horryfies me. I told her that I'd whip all her bits out without a second thought, although she said she hates the idea of that.

I'm on the national register anyway, but having to use steroids, I don't know if anything will be useful.

I give blood often (seeing that my blood saved my son's life when he was a baby) and I will be type to be a Bone Marrow Donor next week when I give blood. You can be bone marrow typed when you give blood so they only have to stick you once. Also see if your blood is CMV negative, if it is you can give your blood (if it is the correct type) to infants. (CMV is a virus that is harmless to children and adults but can be fatal to infants.)

Mostly Harmless (hero at large)

All the relevant people know I'll be back to haunt them alarmingly if my body doesn't get to the nearest teaching hospital They also would find it very difficult to live with themselves if any bit of said body is still usable and they don't let it be used, I hope.

Hello,

Here in the States, I believe you're allowed to give blood if you're gay or straight (they screen all blood with a chance of transmission of 1 in 1.5 million). Still, they do try to actively discourage people who might be at risk for AIDS (not so much homosexual/heterosexual anymore as being in regions with high incidences of AIDS). So, we do have a bunch of location exclusions, largely because of AIDS, malaria, or CJD. Indeed, according to the Red Cross, the following guidelines are used for turning people away:
defer 12 months for travel into areas with a risk of malaria
defer 3 years after having lived for 1 year or more in a malarial-risk area
defer if you were born in or lived in (for more than one year) Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger, or Nigeria since 1977
defer indefinitely if during 1980 - 1996 spent a total time that adds up to 6 months or more in the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Channel Islands)

The last one is the most surprising to me, but I guess it's our own panic over mad cow disease.

In the UK, to be listed (typed) for bone marrow donation, it has to be collected in a special container and sent off to the lab at a fixed time - so Mostly, you probably will have to be pricked twice.

I am on the bone marrow register and the organ donors register (however I have excluded my eyes - how else am I going to check out all the gorgeous hunks when I get to "Heaven"!! - Joking apart, I just don't fancy someone removing my eyes).

I have a rare blood group and for some unknown reason am unable to give blood, but can donate bone marrow. However, my thanks goes out to the 'unknown' blood donors when I needed 8 pints a few years ago.

That's weird that *inhaled* steroids would keep someone from donating blood -- so little of it ever makes it into the bloodstream that it wouldn't have noticeable affects. It's definitely not on the no-no list here in the US.

Myself, I'm on immunosuppressing drugs, so no one can use my blood or bone marrow. Luckily for me, though, my whole family avidly believes in organ donation -- we tend to be pretty pragmatic about such things.


Mikey

I´d like to donate organs, but I´d like to know how I make sure which they take. There are parts of me that I´d like to take with me to the grave.

It's something to do with making sure that people that are very ill, ie people needing blood, are only gven perfect blood, not blood that might have something in it. It definately gets into the blood stream, because if I take more than the normal dose my heart races and I start to shake slightly.