We want your blood
Posted: July 10, 2012 Filed under: LOVE, Parenting, Self improvement | Tags: Blood donations, childhood cancer, Children's Hospital at Westmead, donate organs, Give blood, Honour Minty's 3rd birthday, Mei Lai, Minty's 3rd Birthday Worldwide Blood Drive, organ donation, Red Cross Leave a comment“The hand that gives, gathers.”
Mei-Lai , a lovely lady whom I met via the internet, lost her beautiful baby girl, Minty (Araminta) two years ago on July 11th – one day after her 1st birthday – to a rare form of infant cancer. During Minty’s terrible battle with her disease in her tragically short life, an army of people provided great care and Minty endured many blood transfusions. In Mei-Lai’s own words, “Minty received countless blood and platelet transfusions throughout her 366 days; sometimes multiple times a week; and though her treatment did not cure her, any hope of survival was absolutely dependent on a constant supply of safe blood and platelets, which we were fortunate enough to tap into.”
To honour her memory this year, Mei-Lai is asking friends across the globe to donate blood in the week which would have been Minty’s 3rd birthday on July 10. Mei-Lai has established a Facebook Page for the blood drive here:
If you feel inclined to donate blood in honour of this little girl and for all the children across the globe whose lives depend on it, please do so wherever you may be, and send pictures of yourself donating to Mei-Lai for her to post. She is posting a running tally of blood donation and a map showing where blood has been donated around the world.
If you live in Australia, visit the Red Cross Blood Donation Centres in your capital city. Click on the link to see if you are eligible:
If you live in LA, you can go to UCLA’s Blood Platelet Center in Westwood Village. All the info is here:
Please direct any images you take of your donating to Mei-Lai at
This is something I would LOVE to do, especially considering I work with dying kids who are dependent on blood products. But I’m not allowed to be a blood donor. I lived in the UK in the late 80s (which makes me a mad cow), I’ve had multiple transfusions myself, and my body doesn’t absorb iron well. I’d make a great vampire, always needing a top up. So I am promoting the cause, including a drive to see how many of my Australian friends I can get to donate blood. I recently worked in the transplant ward at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and there are 11 children there waiting for transplants. These are the kids that are being kept alive by blood. I also wish more people would donate organs. We must not give up hope, some childhood cancers that had a 30-40% survival rate in 1980 now have a 70-80% survival rate (I was talking to a researcher at Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick about this early in 2012).
Mei Lai sounds wonderful. I’m always in awe of people who have been through tragedy and not only survived but have an incredible will to help others.
Please give blood for Minty, what a beautiful way to honour her memory
loupollard 