My daughter was three years old when we visited a Jack in the Box restaurant in the U.S. She contracted E-coli from tainted meat, part of a food safety crisis that was all over the news in 1993. Hundreds of people were sickened and four people died.
We were at BC Children’s Hospital for 11 days. Her kidneys were failing when she was admitted, and she was scheduled for dialysis the next morning. She also required three blood transfusions as part of her treatment. Today, she is a healthy 34-year-old, as well as a blood donor who has donated 28 times.
My daughter is also my inspiration for donating blood. I cannot donate as often as I would like because I tend to have low hemoglobin, but I dutifully take iron pills and work hard as I approach each donation to ingest as much iron-rich food as possible, in order to increase the chance that I will be eligible to donate at appointment time. Please donate if you can. It is so vital when there is a crisis that the blood be available. Thank you.
