Hector: I really enjoy donating

I started giving whole blood at secondary school after I turned 16. At the time I was probably more motivated by getting time off class and free biscuits.

I gave sporadically after that and because I moved around the country and lived outside of NZ on several different occasions, my donations were few and far between.

I can't recall exactly when it occurred but sometime in the mid to late 1990s, I heard about a young Māori boy in Christchurch who had a type of cancer that required a matched platelets donor to help his treatment. I learned that the boy (who was three years old) had a particular marker in his blood that was rare and found in those of Māori or Polynesian descent.

I signed up to be donor. Unfortunately I wasn't a match for the young boy but it motivated me to tell my Māori whānau and friends to register and get tested to see if they were a donor match and donate regardless.

I started donating platelets from then on. I found it took a long time so I brought along reading and work that I could do while donating. When I started I could get the platelets yield required in about six cycles, so a donation took about an hour. After many years of donating platelets it got to be very difficult to get the yield required and the number of cycles slowly crept up to more than 10. The process was taking almost two hours. Finally I was advised that it was getting too difficult for the process to get sufficient yield and the scar tissue on my vein was also making it difficult. At the time I was told that I was the longest serving platelets donor they had in Canterbury.

So I changed to plasma donations and have been doing that for a few years now, and I'm over 180 donations.

I really enjoy donating. The staff and volunteers are always awesome and the apheresis staff who look after platelet and plasma donors know us by name and look after us so much so it feels like we're spoilt. I also feel that donating is not an entirely selfless act. I get tremendous benefit from donating; I feel like I'm helping others who need the product and I've met many fabulous people over the years who are equally motivated to help. I hope to continue donating for as long as I'm able.

Ngā mihi mīharo!