Well I always wanted to donate blood, but due to  some   unavoidable reasons I never succeeded in  realizing this desire. However one week ago, when Rajiv was out of station and a blood requirement came, I grabbed the opportunity with my both hands. I wanted to donate blood, experience the donation  procedure, and hence realize the reasoning behind  the myths. From my personal experience now I can fully declare many of the myths to be absolutely  baseless. These myths are as follows:-

1.   WEAKNESS:- I don’t find myself ultrastrong to survive any inhuman condition. Certainly blood donation is not the one. I did not get even a hint of weakness though I did not go to gym for a week as a precautionary measure. But trust me, there is noticeable weakness in the body.

2.   BLOOD WILL DECREASE:- Our body is dynamic enough to replenish the lost blood which is hardly (350ml) within a maximum of 48 hours depending on your physical condition. Even then 48 hours of supposed blood shortage is ain’t too much asking for a person’s life.

3.   HEMOGLOBIN LEVEL:- The hemoglobin level definitely dips, however it decreases very little. The recovery time for the deplete is around one week. But you are medically examined before donating blood & if you are unfit they will never allow you to donate.

4. PAIN:- If you are strong enough to survive a tiny pinch, then you are able to survive the “immense pain” experienced during donation. Except for the slight pain during needle insertion, there is no pain at all.

Now I would like to mention certain advantages of Blood Donation which I feel are certainly more than balancing the supposed disadvantages:-

1. SATISFACTION:- Believe it or not, however nothing can compete with the feeling of saving someone’s life. You may not be a social activist, but this paramount feeling is all the same in everybody. You feel more confident because you just have earned one more reason to be proud of what you are.

2. GET RID OF EXCESS IRON ACCUMULATION:- Excessive iron accumulated in the body stimulate the free radicals which in turn not only damage body cells but also increase exposure to diseases like cancer and heart ailments. Blood donation helps you to shed this extra bit of iron for a healthy life.

3. SYSTEM REFRESHMENT:- Since after blood donation, new blood cells are formed, the body gets detoxified. Moreover the entire system gets refreshed.

Education aims at making us logical and reasonable. However still today a major crunch of the so called educated people are afraid of blood donation. I would like to extend my request to everyone to atleast donate once to get acquainted with the facts and myths.

To get into the details of blood donation visit the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_donation