TOday was momentous. I was able to give blood again for the first time in almost 25 years. I was a frequent donor before `1999 when the Red Cross put a ban on blood donations for people who had lived in teh United Kingdom for more than a year. The ban was due to the “mad cow” disease scare back in the late 90s’ Mad Cow disease (or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy) .. or more accurately the humann. variant which is called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), is a prion disease. Its not a virus or bacteria.. but rather a rogue malformed  protein (prion) which convinces other similar protein molecules to become malformed.. It’s kinda like Ice 9 in Kurt Vonnegut’s book Cat;s cradle  ….

Wait.. where was I.. oh yeah.. blood donation. The Red Cross recently dropped  the ban on folks how’d lived in the UK.. either because the disease had dissapeard.. or becaus they now have a test for it.. donno..

all I do know is that I can now donate blood again.. 
Its the first time I’ve been able to give blood since Sam died. Sam was an organ donor.. and it seems to me that blood donation is the only kind of ‘organ’ donation you can do time and time again.. 

I went in for my donation and found out that the guy taking my blood was new on the job.. it might have even been his first day..   He was great.. A long time phlebotomous was heing him along the way…. which added soe time.. my whole donation took almost 2 hours (!).. but it felt good to do !

 

It was 64 degrees out today.. which is CRAZY for february.. through the warmth really did feel good

 

Tonight we had yoga soup night.. always one of the high points of my week ! 

 

Nice ot have people coem visit

 

nite all, nite sam

-me