My lifelong blood donation project – Project Blooderhood

To donate 222 litres of blood in 75 years

I have calculated, that FROM THIS MOMENT (March of 2011) if i donate blood as frequently as i am medically* allowed to, i can fill up more than 47 persons with my fresh, healthy** blood through my approximated lifetime (just make it optimistic ;)). If someone had watched the very end of the movie: Schindler’s list (1993), may feel the potential behind the idea: Every drop might count.

*: in every 56 days   |   **: constantly working on  it..

The infographics above shows the amount of people i could fill up totally with my blood till i reach my 100th year. I have counted the exact number of filled-up people on my 26th, 50th, 75th* and 100th* birthday.

*: however in most places it’s been said, people only between 17 to 65 are allowed to donate blood. We will see..

Filling up 47+ people with my blood in the next 75 years would be ideally the 100% score completion of my project goal. In Every 25th year i would officially announce (with as much hype as possible:) the exact percentage of the successfully donated / transferred amount of blood. I also tend to use this project to promote the importance of a blood-donator habit and mindset.

Project goal

Donating my blood to as many people as possible, through my remaining Lifetime.

Advantages of regular blood donation

This can be titled as art of “keeping clean”. It’s actually part of the practice (or art) of sidestepping, avoiding diseases, flu-s, AIDS, etc., living as clean as possible on this fairly dirty and contaminated planet. (Hey, I’m not negative, but a realist. ;)..

If you accidentally happen to get motivated by my blood donation project, feel free to go, and also squeeze off some red ‘lemonade‘ of yours. 😉

• Later, this blood donating date calculator webpage will be helpful to count the nearest date of the next possible blood giving. For men the safe time interval between blood donations is around 2 months (56 days, so 6 times per year), for women it’s about 3 months (so 4 times per year). Minimum weight is 45kg / 110 lbs.
• Here is a health checker tool, which roughly tells you, what’s the deal about your current blood giving availability.

Interesting facts about human blood

• In one day, your blood travels nearly 12,000 miles.
• Your heart beats around 35.000.000  times per year.
• Your heart pumps a million barrels of blood during the average lifetime — enough to fill three supertankers.
• Here you can see the interesting History of Blood transfusion. (e.d.: “1657: Sir Christopher Wren takes time out from designing cathedrals to inject some fluids into the circulation of animals, using equipment developed by William Harvey”) – ahahah..what a hairpin bend. %)
• In 1921 at the Kings College Hospital, London, the first voluntary blood service was initiated.

Donating blood is actually a celebration (just as eating food). Why??

Blood circulates on earth as water, but in a smaller amount. When you give blood at the very first time as a volunteer, you explicitly get connected to this “closed circulation system”. I’ve created a term “Blooderhood” for this. It means that somehow you find yourself aware of the fact that blood is like CouchSurfing, or blood is like giving your pen to someone while you know exactly that you presumably will never see that pen again. But you will get another one from another person, later. What you give now, you may get back later, in a different place & time.

Iwan’s blood type is A + . This is the most common blood type (as i know).

 

Iwan’s blood donation Diary:

2007.03.01.	✔ #001 – Budapest, first donation ever was with my (then) girlfriend, Sophie. @MOME University main building – 4.5 dl
2009.01.16.	✔ #002 – 4.5 dl
2009.06.05.	✔ #003 – 4.5 dl
2009.09.30.	✖ failed - fainted (Never-Again i will eat massive lunch 5 minutes before donation, ehheh. )
2010.11.25.	✔ #004 – 4.5 dl
2011.02.25.	✔ #005 – 4.5 dl
2011.04.28.	✔ #006 – almost failed (read the story here) PROJECT PAUSED ;( iwan is banned from blood donation until 28th, Apr, 2012. – 4.5 dl
	PROJECT CONTINUED 🙂
2012.12.11.	✔ #007 – at my workplace – 4.5 dl
2013.03.13.	✔ #008 – in a customized bus. We had as little room as on the International Space Station. 😀 (4min 30s (they say it’s very fast :)) – 4.5 dl
2013.05.14.	✔ #009 – Hungary, Budapest, at Corvinus University (donation time: 6min 13sec) – 4.5 dl
2015.06.14.	✖ Hong Kong – (Causeway bay donation center) failed at World Blood Donor Day.. (not allowed to donate blood in Hong Kong because of the precautions against possible Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease alias “Mad-Cow” disease)
2015.12.24.	✔ #010 – China, Guangzhou city, 4 dl. All went smooth and well. I’m impressed with the system! Next possible donation in China is 6 (!) months later 🙁 – 4 dl
2016.06.	✖ Taiwan, Taipei – (not allowed to donate blood because of the precautions against possible Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease alias “Mad-Cow” disease. - Same stuff as in Hong Kong before.)
2016.08.	✔ #011 – Hungary, Budapest – 4.5 dl
2016.11.27.	✔ #012 – Hungary, Budapest, in the iconic Underground shelter hospital & museum (Sziklakórház Atombunker Múzeum) with a good old friend. At the end i fainted then puked, but donation has already completed, so it was still kinda “happy end” LOL.. – 4.5 dl
2017.12.20.	✔ #013 – Hungary, Budapest – pre-xmas wibe donating with my friend Via Kaulics photographer (https://violakaulics.hu/). All went smooth, donation time was relaxed: 7min 25s – 4.5 dl
2018.06.22.	✔ #014 – Hungary, Miskolc downtown @helynekem bar – All went smooth, donation duration: 7min 20s – 4.5 dl
2018.10.01.	✔ #015 – Hungary, Miskolc, @University - All went smoothly. Had nice talks with the cute nurse. : ) – 4.5 dl
2019.01.17.	✔ #016 – Hungary, Miskolc, @City Hall - All went smoothly. – 4.5 dl
2019.03.29.	✔ #017 – Hungary, Miskolc, @Hospital, - All-out properly 🙂 – 4.5 dl
2019.07.06.	✔ #018 – Hungary, Miskolc downtown @Helynekem bar – All went smooth, donation duration: 6min something. Almost had a glass of beer with the doctor, but she got to check the next donors so i just virtually cheered my (free) beer with the rest of the team 😀 – 4.5 dl
2019.10.11.	✔ #019 – Hungary, Miskolc @Hospital - All went smooth. I guess i already know everybody in the blood-taking team there.. now new faces for a while. 😀 – 4.5dl
2019.12.17.	✔ #020 – Hungary, Budapest @Bazilika tér - advent market - Was fun and fine. I got a kind companion. HAppy to made the 5th this year. Now i maxed out my donation count for this year! YEAH, keep going/giving! – 4.5 dl
2020.02.17.	✔ #021 – Hungary, Miskolc @Hospital - All went smooth. Today we discussed that the nurses' dog breed (Border Collie) is the smartest breed of all 😀 (I'm already precautious with the corona virus, but people not yet using mask or anything) – 4.5 dl
2024.06.14.	✔ #022 – Hungary, Miskolc @Hospital - I skipped so much time since Covid happened.. I feel a bit shameful, but anyways, keep going forward, do what we can today 🙂 - 4.5 dl
2024.10.08.	✔ #023 – Hungary, Miskolc @Hospital - All went well. Took blood from the right arm now. Got my upper half tilted into lying position, just in case:) Time 6m14s - 4.5 dl

All together yet i donated  10.3 liters of blood. ^^
(22 x 4.5 dl @Hungary)
( 1 x 4 dl @China)

Please feel free to leave comments below to maintain a constructive discussion ☟