Give Blood!

About three weeks ago, my friend’s daughter, a kid whom I love very much, had a major spinal operation. Even though her father donate blood to be used in the operation, it wasn’t enough, and she needed many pints more than expected.

I was feeling far away and helpless. Everyone feels helpless to know someone they love is in pain, but I just felt extra since they are in California and i’m in Colorado. I couldn’t easily be there to drop off food or just help in any way they might need it. The blood issue stuck in my mind and I started to look up donating blood.

I’m ashamed to confess it, but I had not previously given blood. I was ( still am a bit) very nervous around needles and I was scared. I didn’t even donate when I worked at Universal Studios and had Dracula sneak up behind me and tell me that he wanted my blood and would give me a free pint of Ben and Jerry’s- a pint for a pint! The tie is was fabulous.

In any case, I went to our local blog bank site, a company called Vitalant and registered. I learned that only 3% of eligible people donate and that only 38% of the population is eligible. For example, my husband can’t donate in the US, because of he lived in England during a certain time frame. There is an urgent need for blood and those of us who can give, are not doing it.

To further simplify the process, I learned that my community, Sterling Ranch, was holding an upcoming blood drive. It couldn’t have been easier.

A few hours prior to my lunch time donation, I filled out a ten minute health survey. This must be done on the same day and it streamlines the process when you arrive to donate. I arrived fifteen minutes early and they took me immediately.

I didn’t know my blood type, but it only took a few minutes to find out. The nurse poked one of my fingers to get a few drops of blood- one quick prick, virtually painless. On a special piece of board she smeared drops of my blood to see if they would react with the chemicals, similar to a PH strip, I think. The section where my blood coagulated, would reveal my blood type.

I was an A negative, which is a rarer blood type. I was asked to switch my donation from whole blood to a “Power Red” or apheresis donation. If you have A Negative blood, this is more useful than a whole blood donation. It takes about ten-fifteen minutes longer, as a machine separates the red cells, and gives the doner back their platelets/plasma/white cells.

I agreed, but there were a few contingencies to make this happen. First, my iron count had to be high. Iron is tested prior to every donation and is done with the same finger prick that they used to blood type me. I was good to go.

My temperature was taken =good.

My blood pressure was taken = fail.

I had to sit calmly for a second blood pressure test, which I passed, barely. The nurses are only allowed to take it twice, and if you fail two times, you can’t donate on that day. However, this was a good reminder that my blood pressure has been running high for the past two years, and I need to start getting it under control before true health problems arise. Through my donation, I also got a read on my cholesterol levels, which were borderline high.

I moved over to the donation chair, where a hilarious nurse named Walt helped me out. He kept me laughing and walked me through the process. I would go through a cycle three times of blood going out and the platelets/plasma/white cells, going back into my body. When the blood was pumping out, I was to squeeze and release a squidgy ball, and when things were coming in, relax. When everything came back into my body, I felt slightly cold and had a slight tingling sensation in my mouth. Nothing hurt or was too unpleasant.

Here is the machine that separated the blood.

The actual donation took about thirty minutes and I felt fine after. I had none of the dizziness or light-headless that I was anticipating. There were cookies, juice, and other snacks for anyone who needed to replenish and we were encouraged to take it easy as our bodies were adjusting.

I can make a power-red donation up to three times a year, so I am just going to add this to my schedule. It was easy, virtually painless, and took less than an hour.

If you are eligible to donate, I encourage you to make an appointment asap. It’s a way that a person can actually impact someone else’s life, perhaps save a life.

Social Distancing in Littleton: Week 23

Oddly, I don’t have much to report this week, so I will keep it short and sweet. Our life has continued with this new-normal. We ate out a few times and had our friends, Julie and Ryan, over for dinner. Generally, we have not been seeing friends, and we have been avoiding big gatherings, but I feel safe with Julie and Ryan, as they are just a two-person household and they work from home. They’re being cautious.

Bigger than Covid this week are the Colorado wildfires. The air quality has been horrendous, but the sunsets have been stunning.

Our community recreation center is nearly finished and the pool is being filled. Due to Covid, we can’t actually use the center, although I think they’re coming up with a plan to open it with a reservation system to keep social distance. I hope we have the chance to use it before it gets cold. The weather has been in the 90’s, but I know that cooler temperatures are just around the corner. I need to start working on those snow shoveling muscles!

A few fun pictures of birthday presents that Dan bought me: A floating flamingo tea infuser and the “There’s a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow” sign. We didn’t go to Disney World last week, but we did make it to Disney’s Springs for some shopping. Disney’s fans will recognize the quote from the sign! Is the song stuck in your head? Also, we saw similar desk signs (non-Disney themed) in Vail and for essentially the same product/same quality, they were triple the price. I was happily surprised that the Disney item was affordable- especially as it was a gift from my husband! All of this is to say that not everything at Disney is outrageously priced….but everything in Vail is insane!!!

Ending with our cute cat picture of the week: Tom dominating his toy!

Social Distancing in Littleton: Week Six

It’s week six of social distancing and the weeks are bleeding into one another. We still have a regular weekday work routine and we look forward to the weekends, but those are mostly a blur of relaxing at home. As far as we are aware, we still don’t know anyone who has contracted the virus.

This Monday, Colorado shifted from “stay at home” orders to “safer at home” and certain areas of our city were supposed to try opening up, however, I’ve not noticed any changes. Governor Polis announced that Colorado was joining a pact with the western states and this made me feel optimistic. I’m worried about the states that are pushing to reopen. I’m shocked that Georgia thinks that including places like bowling alleys and movie theaters in their initial reopening phase is a good idea. Seriously?

We saw news footage of an airplane that was full and several people were not wearing masks. I’m not sure why masks are not enforced. Jet Blue did announce that they will enforce wearing masks on flights. I wish other places would do this, specifically grocery stores. It’s not a big deal and everyone should get on board with it.

And about the grocery stores. There is news about the supply chain breaking due to the meat processing plant closures that has me worried. I’m not worried about missing meat. I can eat vegetarian, no big deal. I mainly have this anxiety about people hoarding food again and empty shelves. During our last trip to the store, things were mostly back to normal. I hope this news doesn’t cause another round of panic shopping. The sense of panic increases my anxiety. Mostly, my anxiety is under control. I don’t need to go back to weird anxiety dreams.

We are still among a handful of neighbors wearing masks on our walks. Luckily, we don’t encounter many people during our evening exercise. It feels pretty safe and we are cautious. We took our face covers down for a quick moment to catch a picture of us in front of the community club house that is being constructed. I’m not sure if we are going to be able to enjoy the pool this summer, but it is exciting to think that we will have one in our neighborhood! With our bandanas down, we look like we’ve gone from “bank robbers” to “ready to enjoy bbq at the hoe-down.” So versatile!

A few dramatic weather shots from this week. It rained, we had a small amount of slushy snow, and we also experienced the hottest day of the year. Actually, the hottest day since we moved to Colorado - about 80 degrees! I miss California, so it was heavenly.

The kitchen experiments continued with making shepherd’s pie using a Colman’s seasoning mix from England. The meat leaked through to the mash topping. It isn’t pretty, but it was tasty. Dan even said that it tasted authentic. That’s high praise.

Dan purchased the biggest tub of Branston Pickle from the British Food Depot. We have quite the collection British food items in our cupboard. We might need to open a shop. The “erase-a-hole” is to show perspective. We have holes from home renovation projects. Being stuck at home is leading to a variety of projects.

Using left over chocolate cake, strawberry syrup, and ice cream, Dan made sundaes. Also, I call them “sprinkles” and Dan called them “hundreds and thousands.”

We left the house twice this week. We headed to Tipsy’s Liquor World (best name ever) to stock up on bourbon, gin and beer. We own several cocktail recipe books that have never been used, so we opened one up and made a “New Yorker”. It was tasty, sort of…really strong and not quite as elegant as the photo in the book. We need more practice! Challenge accepted!

Our second outing was to satisfy a craving for Panda Express. I know. I don’t even really like Panda Express, but I was craving their food specifically, not just Chinese food. We created a mobile order and went to pick it up. We decided that I would go in to collect it. I was impressed with the measures they took to maintain safety. They had one entrance for mobile orders and another for walk-ins. The whole restaurant was blocked off and a new register area was created, so that no one except staff was near the kitchen or buffet islands. The employees stayed more than six feet away, had masks, and dropped food off on a pick-up table. Although a few other customers were in the store, they kept their distance and all but one, wore masks. I felt safe. I also picked up dessert at LaMar’s Donuts, located in the same center as Panda Express. LaMars Donuts had similar safety procedures.

One situation where I did not feel safe occurred in our own home and I feel stupid for allowing it to happen. Prior to the restrictions, we had scheduled a contractor to fit a radon fan in our basement. We agreed to keep the appointment and he showed up with another employee, neither wore masks. We wore our masks, kept distant, and I wiped down all of the surfaces when they left, but I should have insisted that they wear masks. It’s a foolish risk, especially in our home. I do feel happy to have the radon fan, as that was a worry. Now we can move forward with using our basement for more than storage.

We watched season two of Ricky Gervais’ After Life. I cried every single episode. Buckets. It is both desperately sad and incredibly hopeful. Lovely and compassionate. Hilarious and irreverent. If you can handle the tears, it is the perfect show right now.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, we rented Hustlers. It was entertaining and even more so, since it is based on true events. A crazy story. The biggest take-away is we both could not believe how stunning Jennifer Lopez looks. She’s gorgeous, more gorgeous than her much younger co-stars.

We also watched a heavy, depressing documentary about the environment called Planet of the Humans. It brings up important issues, but it is a lot to handle right now. It didn’t leave me feeling hopeful. it drained me. That said, I love the news about the environment beginning to heal while we are stuck at home. I’m sure that us humans will screw it up again when we get the chance, but maybe not completely. Maybe this will change us for the better too. I hope so.

The best entertainment this week came from Tom. We put a video of a mouse running around the tv screen and he went into action.

Tom was also the star of a card that my friend Julie sent to me. She discovered a company called Punk Post, who create customized, hand drawn cards. This card was sent in honor of Tom, who has not taken to litter box training. I have to watch him and give him the stink-eye to get him to use his box. He’s an obstinate kitten.

We had zoom cocktails with a different friend named Julie and her husband Ryan. Julie and Ryan just joined us in moving from California to Colorado and since we cannot celebrate in person, they gave us a tour of their beautiful new home! Joyful things are happening!

Ending with happy on more cat pictures from this week. Tom claimed a toy box and I caught the two cuddling again.