Virginia Hamilton is still moved by a letter she received some three decades ago from the American Red Cross. It thanked her for saving a life. Virginia, 73, had been donating blood since her 20’s and platelets since her 30’s, but this was a special case.
A little boy who had a bone marrow transplant was in the hospital and not doing well. The Red Cross asked if she would be willing to donate platelets continuously over a period of months and she said yes. For the first several weeks, Virginia went in three days a week to donate at the Red Cross office in Merrifield, VA. The next several weeks, she came in twice a week, then once a week, then once every other week and then once a month. The Red Cross was so concerned she would be dangerously low in proteins because of all the blood she was donating that they recommended she consume extra nutrients. She drank a glass of milk with a peanut butter sandwich for lunch every day and had a daily bowl of rice and beans. By the time she finished donating it was Christmas and the little boy was better.
“They sent me a note saying he got to home for Christmas,” Virginia says. “He wasn’t doing very well and then he got my blood and he got better. I really was walking around on a cloud for a very long time.”
Sometimes it was hard to get the blood from Virginia because she has one arm where the veins “roll” when the needle is inserted. “They brought in a special nurse and she was really good at getting the needle in so they could get the platelets out,” Virginia says.
Virginia has AB positive blood, which is rare, and there is not a lot of demand for it, so she started donating platelets instead. She estimates that she gave five gallons of platelets to the Red Cross from her 20’s to her 50’s. For the next 10 years she donated to Inova Fairfax Hospital because it had blood donation centers that were closer to her job or her home. She has no estimate of how much blood she gave to Inova. Virginia stopped giving blood a couple of years ago after a couple of failed attempts to draw her blood.
“After 50 years of giving blood, its time for someone else to take over,” Virginia says.
Virginia’s family’s commitment to donating blood spans three generations. She was inspired by her aunts who started giving blood during World War II and then just kept it up afterwards. Virginia’s daughter started giving blood as soon as she was old enough. For years she had accompanied her mother on her treks to give blood, first to the Red Cross downtown and later, when it opened up, to the office in Merrifield, which was much closer to home.
Virginia lives in Sterling, VA with her cockatoo, Charlie. She has a daughter Mary Ann. She’s retired from a job in construction where she reviewed blueprints and estimated building costs.
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