Disheartened

When I lived in Florida, July 1990 to October 2001, I was a regular blood donor. Over the years I donated over 2 gallons.

I moved back to Georgia in October of 2001 to find the local Red Cross had a paperwork issue regarding an enzyme or amino acid count from back in the late 80's. The issue was resolved as far as my doctor was concerned, something was elevated due to a med I was taking. The Red Cross had not updated my file.

It took about 5 years of sporadic attempts to contact people, hearing things such as, "the person who did that job is no longer with us and we have yet to fill the position, so it may take a while," to things such as "we have to search for the record, and when enough time goes by without locating it, then we'll clear the record."

So about a year ago I was finally cleared. Since then I have tried 4 times to donate blood. One time they said my heart rate was too high at that moment. The other three times, including today, they said my iron count was too low. The information packet they give you says to eat meat and veggies and that some fruits can help you absorb it too. After the last failed attempt I bought and started taking an iron supplement, to try to beat this problem.

Today I had a 33% count with 38% being required. I took a supplement this morning that says it has 361% of the daily dose of iron and I STILL could not donate.

There is not a lot I am passionate about when it comes to helping others, but this is my one thing I love to do and take pride in doing, and it has been taken away from me.

This, however, makes me happy.