I met a fellow collapsed lung survivor today.
I went to give blood today, and the technician who checked me in and checked my veins to see if I could really give platelets - I couldn't (whew!) - asked me if instead of giving platelets, I'd give whole blood. I said "of course" and remarked that my life was saved when I was 22 by a blood donation.
She said, "Me too! I was 22 and I had one collapsed lung and another partially collapsed lung."
I said, "I had a collapsed lung and I was in a coma for three days, after they checked me for brain activity to see if they could take my organs." I then made my standard joke about failing the brain dead test but being allowed to recover anyway.
I said "Mine was a bicycle accident. It was my fault. What happened to you?"
She said, "I was stabbed twice during a robbery."
I said, "Oh my God!"
It seems she was walking home from work, and she had cashed her paycheck - it was just before the days of electronic banking - and was heading home to her 1 year old daughter with the rent money in cash in her bag, when a woman tried to snatch her purse. Because she was young, and because she needed to pay the rent, she fought with the woman who than proceeded to stab her twice. She said to herself, "I may be dead, but this is the last person you're going to do this to" and grabbed the woman by the hair and held her until the police came and arrested her.
The woman who stabbed her was a drug addict, and apparently had pulled this before with 5 other people. She got 13 years in prison.
I asked her if it changed her life, and she said, "well yes." (Nearly dying does change your life; I know.)
She said that for a long time she couldn't be around people, couldn't trust them, but she got over.
The thing is, she was a delightful woman, really positive and bubbly and pleasant, one of the best blood donations of my life, and I've done a lot of them.
She told me it's perfectly OK to not give platelets, and I should tell them when they call me that I'll just do whole blood, although they're always looking for platelet donors to save cancer patient's lives. (I failed at my first platelet attempt.) She said, "Don't feel guilty; it's not your fault; you just don't have the veins for platelets, but if you want to give whole blood, we'll see you again in about 60 days.
Quite a story she has. I'm thrilled that this nice person lived and forgave the world.
She told me she felt terrible for the assailant when she went to the trial and said, "I guess she's out now. I hope she kicked the drugs and is doing better."
Forgiveness is a wonderful thing. I wish I were better at it.
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