Keith Barlow: Donating Blood and Rescuing Starfish

Keith Barlow weighs in on why he feels it’s important to donate blood.

There’s a well-known allegory about a young girl rescuing starfish washed up on the beach after a storm. The stranded starfish have no place to hide and the girl is flinging them back into the ocean. An adult interrupts her progress with the admonition that, “You’ll never make a difference to them all!” to which the child responds, “…but I made a difference to THAT one!” and then defiantly flings another starfish back into the ocean. This allegory originates from a story by Loren Eiseley.

I think of the starfish when I am on the couch at my blood donation center in Pleasanton. As I share a modest amount of my blood, I know that there is someone for whom this donation will make a difference.

As maybe our most vital renewable resource, this precious fluid benefits a wide variety of people: cancer patients, trauma victims, post-partum mothers, sickle cell disease sufferers, and so on. My blood type is A negative and I have easy veins, so I donate platelets and my donation can make a difference for as many as three (and sometimes more!) needy individuals.

There are always starfish on this wave-beaten beach. Every two seconds, someone somewhere needs blood. That’s almost sixteen million units of blood in a year and yet no more than three percent of us donate.

I have friends who’ve stepped into a donation center with the motivation to give a pint, only to be deferred. Some deferrals are due to high blood pressure or iron deficiency. Certain eligibility standards won’t change, but in the past few years, the FDA has eased restrictions on other donor standards, allowing for more world travelers and more inclusive criteria for the LGBTQ community.

When I am back off the couch and relaxing in the canteen enjoying my snacks and juice, I will usually take a moment to schedule my next donation. And then, when I return to the couch in a few weeks, I will fling more starfish back into the ocean. With a Perspective, I’m Keith Barlow.

Keith Barlow is an IT professional in the East Bay. He donates platelets every three weeks or so.