There’s Always a Need…

Greetings crew,

We apologize for running silent recently we’ve been having to dodge a rather large human dressed in red with an odd propulsion system. We’ve managed to lead him to the outer reaches of Earth’s solar system for now but he could return. Be on the look out, he calls himself Santa Claus.

On a more serious note one of the charities that the USS Tiburon tries to support is our local blood bank. Personally, I’ve been donating blood for over 20 years and got started because of a “blood feud” that happened when the first chapter I was with was challenged by a Klingon group to see who could raise the most units of blood donations in a single day. (I’m pleased to say that we routed them three consecutive years in a row.)

The winter months are typically the hardest on the blood banks. Car accidents, wounds of various types, and surgeries for a good many things take up a large amount of blood – this happens year round of course. The problem becomes when the demand remains the same or increases but the supply decreases because of cold and flu season and colder weather keeping those that would donate at home. As a result, blood banks don’t have as much in reserve for when a major disaster strikes at this time of year.

There are some folks that donate blood only when a major disaster strikes. That’s all well and good, and I do encourage that. However, the need for blood donations is constant and blood does go bad after a few weeks in storage. It is because of this that, instead of donating only when disaster arises, I choose to donate year round (health permitting – don’t want to accidentally give someone a cold or flu bug) AND I fully encourage others to do the same. Whole blood donations can be made once every eight weeks and platelets and plasma can be donated every other week by most people.

For those who are able, I encourage you to call your local blood bank and schedule a date and time to make a blood donation. Please be sure to keep it! When chaos strikes, every drop counts, and you never know when you or a loved one may need this very precious gift. All it costs is a little time and gas money to potentially save someone’s life.

I now return you to whatever you were doing previously.

The XO