Happy NDR 2008, Everybody!
Happy National Day of Reason! 
What are you doing to celebrate? One of the more popular suggestions is to donate blood, and this is an excellent idea. I would like to suggest a variant of this, for those who have a little more time.
Something I started doing a few years ago is platelet apheresis, the scientific name for donating blood platelets. Platelets are one of the major components of whole blood (along with red cells, white cells and plasma). Platelets are needed for transplants, certain types of cancer treatments, and people with compromised immune systems. Pediatric cancer patients use platelets at an even greater rate than adults.
Most major cities have apheresis units run by the Red Cross.
There is really only one major drawback to platelet donation, and that is the time involved. It can take 90 minutes to 2 hours to donate. But this actually leads to one of the cool things about it: you get to watch movies! I use the time to catch up on the movies I never saw in theaters once they come out on DVD. My apheresis unit has these great Barcalounger-type chairs with, individual TVs and DVD players, and a whole cart full of movies: new ones, old one, classics, TV shows—tons of stuff that I would normally not make the time to watch. And you can bring your own (I have a Netflix subscription for just this purpose).
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| Scanning electron microscope image of a white blood cell, platelet and red blood cell |
You sit in your chair, put on your movie (with headphones), and away you go.
Another "plus" to platelet apheresis: you can do it a lot more often than whole blood donation. I usually go every two weeks. It takes weeks to replenish the red cells in your body (blood volume, on the other hand, is made up in a matter of hours after your donation). If you have ever donated whole blood, you are probably familiar with the run-down feeling you get afterwards. This is because your red cells are depleted, and red cells are what carry oxygen to your tissues. If you run or work out, you will find it noticeably harder to do after donating whole blood.
Not so with platelet donation. Platelets are responsible for clotting; they do not carry oxygen. A healthy person has more than enough platelets for normal needs even right after a donation. And your body regenerates the donated platelets in a matter of hours. In fact the only thing that prevents you from donating again in a day or two is whether the needle sites in your arms have healed. And there's no fatigue as with whole blood. You will feel no ill effects at all after a platelet donation.
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| A bag o' platelets. I think it looks like melted butter! |
Did I say needle sites? Plural? Well, yes. The way apheresis works is, they take the blood, run it through a machine that separates out the platelets and then returns the rest of the blood (white cells, red cells and plasma) to you. The preferred method is the "double needle," one for each arm. There is another method which uses a single site and a "needle within a needle." In some places, you can request one or the other.
Some people are squeamish about needles, a feeling I understand and share. But take a look at some of the little kids with cancer who need your platelets, imagine what they go through every single day of their lives, and your discomfort with needles will start to seem pretty trivial. That's not an appeal to emotion—it's a lesson in what's called "perspective." It is eminently rational. I hate needles. They suck. They creep me out. Yet I have done platelet apheresis over 100 times.
So on this National Day of Reason, I suggest you call the American Red Cross The national toll-free number is 1-800-GIVELIFE (1-800-448-3543) and make a platelet apheresis appointment. Not to take anything away from people who donate whole blood (which platelet donors can still do, by the way), but pheresis rocks!
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