sometimes life is good

[edenfalling]

Random nice but weird things that have happened to me recently:

1. A few days ago I got a letter from the Red Cross saying that they'd tested my blood (routine screening, done for all blood donors) and it turns out I have never caught/been exposed to cytomegalovirus (CMV). Which is apparently a flu-like virus that something like 85% of people have antibodies for by age 40. It's mostly harmless to adults, but can apparently do a real number on infants, so people who have no CMV antibodies are important blood donors for neonatal patients.

The Red Cross already really like me because I'm O+ and donate several times a year. Now they really really like me.

Which is nice! But also weird, because if CMV is a flu-like virus, that to me implies that it's an upper respiratory thing... and I am so susceptible to upper respiratory viruses that it would be difficult to exaggerate. So for me to somehow NOT have caught this one is frankly absurd. *wry*

2. A few months back my bank ran a little "contest" where anyone who took two free online financial education courses (which were ~5 minutes a pop) was entered into a drawing for a $50 prepaid Amazon gift card. I figured what the heck, financial literacy is a good thing in general, and ran through four or five that looked useful. I assumed that was the end of it, because I never win things... but apparently this time my luck changed. Because this morning I got an email saying I'd won, and should come pick up my card sometime in the next couple weeks.

So that's two nice but weird things in my recent life. :)

Comments

[tielan]

Nice but weird works. Yay for you!

[edenfalling]

:D

[redwolf]

I'm going to take a wild punt that CMV negative status is a genetic thing, as it's the same reason me and a cousin were nabbed by the blood bank as plasma donors.

I hadn't been going for ages, then work organised a group blood donation that got me back on the Red Cross radar. Now the local branch hijack me every fortnight for plasma.

CMV can be fatal to not just infants, but the elderly and anyone with a compromised immune system, like patients on radiation or chemotherapy. So while CMV- blood goes to babies, CMV- plasma would end up helping kids fighting leukemia.

I am surprised the Red Cross took so long to run that test on you. I knew from my first donation decades back. I would have thought the test would be standard to categorise blood for potential specialised usage. Maybe it's a cyclical thing, where they had a large pool of CMV- donors that has dropped off recently and they're looking to bolster it.

While I'm a plasma donor, they also tend to tap me for blood every four months too, especially around Christmas and Winter (Southern hemisphere seasons here) when regular donors are out with the flu, so their stockpile drops. When I donate blood, it's a month break and then I'm back on fortnightly plasma donations, so you can do both.

Yay for your super baby saving blood powers. And your shiny new Amazon winnings.

[edenfalling]

I did a bit of quick googling, and it looks like CMV is actually more closely related to chicken pox than the flu, and definitely doesn't transmit the same way as the flu -- it's entirely through bodily fluid contact rather than breathing in the general vicinity of a contagious person. I wash my hands a lot, and don't come into contact with other people's bodily fluids in the normal course of my life, so it's less surprising than I thought that I've never caught the virus.

Yeah, I have no idea why they only just now tested me. It seems like the sort of thing they'd want to keep an eye out for!

[wistfulmemory]

Yay for being awesome and willing to go out and save the world one blood donation at a time!

That's so cool about the gift card. Go you!

[edenfalling]

Thanks! :)