During this time of the year I keep hearing advertisements and seeing posters for blood drives. It puts me in the frame of mind to be conscious about this life saving issue. I've never given blood before, but lately I've been wondering if I would like to give blood and how this would impact my life and the lives of others.
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I don't even know my blood type. I've asked certain doctors who have done a blood panel on me before and they have just looked at me strange like I ought to know what my blood type is already at this stage of my life. It reminds me of the occurrence in the bible regarding the benediction and the malediction when God asked the Israelites to choose between life or death. (Deuteronomy 11:26)
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I reverently respect life. And the issue of donating blood or receiving blood transfusions is a sensitive subject for me. I imagine it is to others as well. Jesus said whoever loves his soul too much would lose it and whoever was conscious of losing his soul would gain it. (John 12:25) I always think of this when it comes to making important life decisions such as donating blood or accepting blood transfusions.
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Life and its life force or soul and blood is a very precious gift and I don't take it lightly. Receiving a blood transfusion is on the same level of seriousness as putting one's life at risk to help another person in need or traveling, perhaps, at night when one is exhausted and afraid of falling asleep behind the wheel. Sadly, some are hypocritical in that they do the latter, but would never consider donating blood or receiving a blood transfusion. All of these things are part of the consideration of choosing life and not carelessly putting anyone's life in danger.
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Although I've never donated blood before in my life, the issue of donating blood and receiving blood transfusions is a constant in my life because of my understanding of the holy scriptures and God's admonition or warning to abstain from blood.
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This issue brings up so many conflicting thoughts for me that I don't know how to direct someone except to share my experiences and relay my reliance on a Higher Power and my God-given conscience to warn others to do a similar search for the truth about donating blood or receiving blood transfusions.
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When thinking of the issue of blood and the ethical issue of donating blood or blood transfusions I can't help but remember my first experience with blood, of all places, in a psychiatric unit by a psychiatrist who violated me with blood products. Why this psychiatrist would do such a thing is beyond me, except he had an enormous amount of authority. But he must have witnessed lots of family members or friends if not himself being persecuted during World War II in Nazi concentration camps, because he was Jewish. I thought he was Jewish at least. (He wore a yamaka).
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It was my first day or so in the hospital. I know this for a fact because I hadn't been given any medication yet. There is an evaluation period or waiting period the doctor's have to wait before they can administer medication. I was sitting in the patient lounge. All of a sudden I saw the psychiatrist through the glass window walking towards me with this strange-looking glass vile that had a black lid screwed on top. It had a long tube extending out from it. I froze. I looked at him and the glass vile of blood and thought to myself as he was walking closer towards me that I am just as helpless as a sitting duck.
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He and a male nurse who assisted him grabbed my right arm. I immediately thought of Jesus Christ when he said if they slap you on one side of your cheek turn the other also. (Matthew 5:39) As the doctor pricked me I turned my head to my left and started praying fervently. The male nurse blurted out, "You Jehovah's Witnesses, You don't accept blood transfusions." I knew this was a subtle form of persecution for being one of Jehovah's Witnesses and for being a Christian. I didn't think of it any other way. The doctor was abusing his power.
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My arms then became paralyzed. The psychiatrist and nurses kept saying it was because of the Haldol they later gave me. But I know it was a combination of the contaminated blood and also due to the fact that the psychiatrist kept giving me large doses of Haldol without giving me Cogentin to counter the affects of the Haldol. I also believe the holy spirit was a factor.
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I've thought back on that one mistreatment there in the psychiatric unit of Saint Mary's Hospital in Bayonne, New Jersey many times. There were other worse abuses that I've recounted over the years that happened to me in there. But this, truthfully, was equivalent to the other abuses I experienced in there.
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My mom had told the doctors in the ER about my preoccupation with believing I had acquired AIDS and wanting to get an AIDS test all because of my guilt of having had a sexual encounter unprotected with a male acquaintance. So why the psychiatrist would want to compound my fears is cruel to me.
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After that administration of blood I felt filthy. I felt dirty all over and I have had bouts of phlebitis ever since.
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My advice to anyone contemplating a blood transfusion or considering donating blood is to pray fervently on the matter to our Creator as to what you would do when a crisis arises and you may be faced with the issue of receiving a blood transfusion. More often than not it is not as dire as the doctors would have you believe. There are so many other alternatives you ought to consider. I personally have made a dedication never to receive a voluntary blood transfusion myself. I also strive to live a vegetarian lifestyle trying to move toward a vegan lifestyle living in harmony with the animals and my fellow man.
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So, the conflict for me is not there. Except I often wonder why so many persons who abstain from blood transfusions often don't carry the same concern when it comes to meat products that are laden with blood still. And how their conscience can let them kill an animal and eat some byproducts of blood, yet, deny their fellow man a, sometimes, lifesaving gesture by donating their own blood.
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Every person has to make their own choice.
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Once, not too long after that hospitalization, I asked my dear friend at my congregation if we are allowed to eat meat and she adamantly said, "We're not allowed to eat blood!"
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And I couldn't comprehend how you could do one without doing the other. Not every trace of blood is taken out of raw meat before it is cooked. So, this contradiction is difficult for me to understand. I try to just abstain from meat altogether. And I usually feel guilty for weeks when I do eat meat, and, believe me, I thoroughly try to clean the meat from any blood. But I know it doesn't all come out.
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The Christians in the First Century were admonished to abstain from blood through the power of the holy spirit. (Acts 15:28, 29)
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I still to this day take that admonition seriously, although, I don't like to make a big issue of it, especially, do I not push my God-given conscience on others.
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My yearning for sharing this with you is regret of past moments of silence when my school mates at art school had a blood drive and at that time I sat silently by, and, although, I didn't donate blood myself I didn't speak up and share some of this important information about blood with them. So I am trying to make up for lost time.
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I admonish you, please, to make a thorough search for the truth. Choose life. But, more importantly, choose the truth. It will always lead you to life. Always.
