Overwhelming Response

Remember the movie "Field of Dreams" when Kevin Costner said, "If you build it, they will come?" Well, I asked people to "come" (donate) and they did! I went out to San Bernardino this morning and donated platelets. When I was there, the switchboard received in excess of 10 calls from potential donors for Nonnie. I overheard them say that they had to forward all calls to the Riverside office.

By days end, there were 5 units of platelets collected for Nonnie. As a refresher, it takes 3 days to process the platelets prior to transfusion. The platelets only have a 5 day shelf life. That means that the direct donor recipient has 2 days to use them, or they will go into the system. This alleviates any waste of critical blood product.

The procedure to have platelets donated to Nonnie is different than when she was at UCLA. Papa has to pay out of pocket for each unit of platelets for processing and transportation ($135). Due to the high number of people asking to donate, we need to come up with a plan. Our strategy will be to avoid having multiple donors go in on the same day and to see which donors Nonnie responds to best.

All future donations will be made at the Riverside office. Please give me a couple of days to coordinate with Papa and the doctors to develop our plan. Thank you all so much for your prayers and support!