Bankling Blood

[Nancy]

Has anyone banked a couple of units of your blood prior to the surgery? and if so how did you go about it?

[treehugger]

This will be transplant center/hospital-specific, so your best bet is to ask there.

I asked about it at my pre-surgical appointment and was told...something I can't remember (it was 3.5 years ago) but there was a good reason why I decided not to do it.

Kara

[jstx]

I agree with Kara-ask your center. I brought this up with my surgeon during my all-day evaluation & he was very frank with me. It was his experience that if I needed blood during my surgery I couldn't bank enough beforehand. A little frightening but he had only ever had one donor who needed a transfusion. And that donor would have never been able to bank what he ended up needing.

[WellGrounded]

I'm in the process of doing this. My surgery is in 2 weeks and this past week I donated 1 unit of blood. I'm suppose to be donating another unit this week. You're only allowed to donate a unit of blood every week since that's how long it takes to recover from it but I highly suggest you do it to avoid complications in case you do need a blood transfusion. Who knows what diseases or infections you could end up contracting from other people's blood.