You are Amazing

One of the strap lines for donating blood is….Give Blood. Do something amazing. I like the word ‘amazing’ it conjures up wonderful achievements. Giving blood is a truly amazing thing to do, it is a small act of kindness by one person that can change the destiny of another. But donating blood is just one of the amazing things that people do. I have been asking donors to tell me something amazing about them and this is a record of some of the things I’ve been told.

It wasn’t just the strap line that provoked an interest in amazing things though, a little bit of friendly competition was the catalyst….Whilst working at the Dukinfield session, Paula and I had just screened our donors and were preparing the blood packs. Paula turned to me and said, “My donor works in a furnace, isn’t that amazing?” Even in a mask she could see the equivalent of a ‘meh’ expression on my face. I took my donor to the chair and said to him, “David, tell me something amazing about you.” As he thought about it I said I needed to better the furnace guy. Well David didn’t disappoint, it turns out he installed the water features at the Trafford Centre and also at Wimbledon. I was a point ahead.

It started as a competition between Paula and I but soon I was intrigued to find out things about all the people I came into contact with. Some had a ready answer. Some needed to think. Some said there was nothing amazing about them…this I refused to believe. Amazing comes in all shapes and sizes, what we think amazing one day is superseded by something another day. Whilst meeting a celebrity is amazing for one person overcoming a fear is amazing to another, this is what made every response I got so interesting.

I strengthened my lead from Paula when I spoke to my next donor. He had only played the piano with Elton John! Paula closed the gap as her next donor had danced with Diana Ross. Oh my, we were enjoying ourselves and the competition between Paula and I was usurped by the wonderful things people shared with us. It is not ‘the British way’ to boast of our achievements, but once I teased something out of people they enjoyed sharing their experience.

I have to say the folk of Dukinfield exceeded expectation. One lady told me that three days after her last donation she was in an awful car accident. She broke both her arms, both legs and her collar bone yet she survived and recovered and was back donating blood. Another lady learnt Russian dancing as a child and went on a trip to Russia where she met a famous Russian choreographer. One lady told me she had the opportunity to fire a machine gun whilst on a trip in Vietnam.

After some thought one man announced that he had driven down two hundred steps in Spain. Well I had to get him to elaborate on that. It turned out that he was on holiday with three mates and they took it in turns to drive their little hire car. When it was his turn he ended up going down a windy road that got narrower and narrower, it suddenly ended at the top of some steps. The idea of reversing all the way back round tight little bends didn’t appeal and so he decided to drive down the steps. As little old ladies in their Mediterranean black garb looked on in bemusement he galumphed downwards one step at a bone shaking time. I bet he didn’t mention that to the car hire firm when he handed back the keys!

My next donor was a teacher but his amazing was from a previous job when he was an actor. He had been in an episode of Doctor Who. Matt Smith was the Doctor and he had been the best man at a wedding. He had been listed in the credits. For me this surpassed playing the piano with Elton John, he went to the top spot.

I met a woman who had visited every continent except Antarctica, which she hoped to add to her list. I met a man who had played darts with Eric Bristow. Then I met the man who had been to Norway….he went to Lillehammer to the Olympic toboggan run. He actually told me he had been to Sweden, but I presume he meant Norway. He had the chance to go down the run. He said he covered nearly three kilometres in a few seconds and the experience was mind blowing. He and his friends were then offered the opportunity to do the skeleton run….basically lying on a tin tray with your face centimetres above the ice as you travel at breath taking speeds. His friend decided to give it a whirl. He shot down the track and wobbled over to them afterwards looking pale. They asked him what advise was he given as he prepared to do it….’Just hold on!’ Yikes!

I met the lady who runs marathons and promotes Blood Not Money. She wants people to sign up to donate rather than ask them to give money. I then met a lady who is a district nurse, she told me few things about her job and her family, but then she told me something amazing. She had worked for a few weeks on a Covid end of life Ward and it made her realise, along with the fact that she had lost her mother a few years ago, that end of life nursing was where her destiny lay; she felt strongly that the way we leave our life is very important, she was passionate about how it needed to be right. What an amazing lady, just the person you want to nurse you in your last days.

My last donor of the evening proudly shared a video of her doing a fire walk. I have had ‘walking across hot coals’ on my bucket list for a long time. When she told me where she had done it I googled it and it turns out it is being held again at the end of this month. Well, what else could I do but book it. In fact Paula and I have both booked it. These amazing people have inspired us….

All this amazingness came from just one session. I have scribbled notes from other sessions which I shall write about in my next instalment of Tell Me Something Amazing About You!!