You know how old stand-up comedians used to start their routines with "A funny thing happened on the way to the theatre..."? Well, a few weeks ago, a funny thing happened me in the airport. I took a quick trip to the bathrooms and was alarmed to discover quite a lot of blood on the toilet paper when I was finishing up. (Oh yeah, this post might ick you out a little bit.) There was more blood on the bowl, the sight of which made me the tiniest bit dizzy. Nothing like being in an airport, on your own and bleeding profusely from the back passage to cause a mild panic.
Let's come straight out and say it: Lisa's mother has been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. The events that led up to this have been unfolding over the past month, and a fairly concrete diagnosis came something over a week or a fortnight ago.
Lisa, naturally, was devastated. She didn't help herself much by doing some web research into the survival rates and details of the disease. Seems Ovarian Cancer is dubbed the 'silent killer'...
Every time I visit my father in the hospital, I pass the Blood Transfusion Service. It's been weeks now, and with each passing day I've been questioning why I don't give blood.
This last week though, I've been trying to push myself towards making a donation. I've had to accept that I'm slightly nervous about blood - I once had a white-out at a First Aid course when they started talking about the different types of bleeding! However, that slight fear finally spurred me on today. The other motivating factor was the amount of time I've spent in hospitals lately and the fact that donating was a quick and efficient way to make a difference.
During my visit to the hospital, I decided to put on my "man of action" head and just do the donation. I'd had lunch at the hospital, thus satisfying the requirement not to make the donation on an empty stomach. I had Dan with me, but left him with my mother for an hour while I walked over to the transfusion place.
