(This picture is terrible. I ended up passing out a minute after the blood donation was complete. This picture was taken a few minutes after I woke up, when I realized that I had forgotten to get the nurse to take a picture earlier.)Lee often jokes that I am a vampire since I am obsessed with blood, "True Blood," and "Twilight." However, I do feel strongly that it is important to give back to our communities by donating blood.
Everytime that Graysen has surgery, and the cooler of blood is brought to his bedside, I am thankful for the people that have taken time to donate so that it is readily available for all who need it. It is just one of the medical miracles that has allowed us to share two wonderful years with our little boy.
Graysen has received a significant amount of blood. He has been on the heart lung bypass machine three times, which requires 450 ml - 1000 ml of blood to prime each time. Also, he had a significant bleed from the reconstruction of his left pulmonary artery during the second surgery. A standard blood donation is 450 ml, so it took donations from multiple people in the Charleston area to provide blood for each of Graysen's surgeries. He will continue to receive blood since at least two more open-heart surgeries are in Graysen's future during his childhood.
As an interesting fact, the average newborn's blood volume is only 225 ml. So, when Graysen came out of surgery when he was nine days old, most of the blood circulating through his body was from donors and not produced by his body.
I do not think that it is important where blood is donated, all communities are in need of blood. Please let me know if you decide to donate blood this month in honor of Grasyen. Feel free to send a card, email, or picture. I think that this is something very special that can be done to honor Graysen and all children that need medical help during their childhood.
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