I want to tell you how you can be a superhero and potentially save three lives. That's right, but before I tell you that, I want to share a really important story. There's a 50-year-old woman who's otherwise healthy, living a good life, works out, eats well, in good shape, doesn't smoke, drinks and moderation, and she suddenly starts getting sick more and more often with upper respiratory infections. Sometimes viral, sometimes bacterial, needing antibiotics. She actually ends up in the emergency room and gets admitted into the hospital for pneumonia infection. Now, this happens two, three, four times, and then the family realizes something's wrong and they bring her to a specialist. The specialist runs a few tests and unfortunately the family is notified that this lovely woman is now diagnosed with leukemia, but a very specific form of leukemia called CLL. This is a chronic form of leukemia where the person doesn't necessarily have their life affected much by the leukemia, meaning that they still live a long, healthy life, maybe with just slightly more infections in the average person. However, this person's quite unfortunate. She had a form of CLL that was aggressive, and despite the fact that she was supposed to live for another 20-30 years with this illness, she was starting to get sick more and more often and it was taken a hold of her health. She needed to go for stem cell treatments, radiation treatments, even chemotherapy at times. But there's one bit of her treatment that I want to focus on that I feel like doesn't get enough attention and that's transfusions. This woman had to go for so many transfusions because every time she was suffering with low iron levels, low hemoglobin levels, it was a danger to her health and she needed to get her blood transfuse. The person that I'm talking to about is actually my mom. I lost my mom to CLL when I was in medical school. Her birthday just passed, so I'm really happy that I'm able to do this video in her memory and sort of remember her in a positive, uplifting, proactive way so that if she's watching, she knows we're doing this on her behalf and she could smile. She was a person that taught me a lot and one of the things she taught me indirectly is about the value of transfusions, not only in battling her illness but also in feeling better because if you have low blood counts, you feel extremely fatigued and hurts your physical abilities but also your mental health as well. In her sharing all these stories with me, it taught me a valuable lesson and that valuable lesson is that blood donation isn't only important at times of crisis, cancer patients, sickle cell patients, those that are going into labor, all of these people may need blood transfusions and we need to think about this. Why? Because only two to three percent of the age eligible population in the U.S. actually don't age blood yearly. Why is that not enough? Because we need to transfuse blood every two seconds in this country. So if we're not donating enough, we can actually fall into a shortage where we won't be able to help people. Just to put it in perspective for you, if someone's involved in a really serious car accident, they may need up to a hundred pints of blood. Now an entire human body we only have 10 pints of blood. And when we donate, we only give one pint. So if you think about how much we need versus how much we have available, it's a very slippery slope before we develop into a shortage if people aren't donated. So for today's video, I partnered up with the Red Cross to talk about the ins and outs of giving blood. Now there's many myths that I hear propagator all the time about blood donations that are simply untrue. So I'm here to set the record straight, explain to you what happens when you actually don't need blood, what you should expect and to see that the process is actually quite simple and I'm about to go do it. If you're curious after the video, make sure you jump into that link in my description and check out what the Red Cross is all about and where you can donate blood as well. Before we jump into the myths, I want to go over how simple the process to donate blood actually is. There's only four steps. Registration, health check, donating of the actual blood, and ten refreshments and snacks. For the registration process, you're going to fill out some paperwork, read about donating blood, write your address, show your ID, that sort of thing. The next step is your health check. So you're going to be answering some questions about your health, about your medications, about your travel history. Don't worry, this is all confidential. And the final part of that is to go check your vitals, which include your temperature, pulse, blood pressure, even your hemoglobin level. Those are all cool things and important things to know. Step three is the bread and butter, the actual donation process. And it's actually only lasts about eight to ten minutes if you're donating whole blood. You'll be seated or even lying down depending what you're donating. Afterwards, you're going to get a bandaid and it's on to step four, which is refreshments and recovery. Where you get to hang out, drink a sugar drink like an orange juice, have some snacks, cookies or my favorite. Don't watch you for a short period of time. And then you're good to go. My recommendations, while you're eating that cookie, while you're drinking that juice, take a selfie and share with your friends how you're doing a great deed by donating blood. Maybe actually guilt them into doing so as well so we can help more people. Let's get on with it and tackle some myths right off the back. Myth number one, it's going to take a lot of time to donate blood. It's false. Absolutely not. The whole process takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and the actual donation takes eight to 10 minutes. Myth number two, I can't donate blood because I got a tattoo. There's no way that's correct. If you have a tattoo and it was done within the last 12 months, but if it was done in a state regulated facility, you're a good to donate. If it wasn't done in a state regulated facility or you happen to live in a state where they don't regulate tattoo parlors, you do have to wait a year, but you can still donate. Myth number three, I'm too old to donate. Agreed of disagree. There's really no such thing. Once you're above the age of 17 and even 16 in some cases, you can start donating for the rest of your life. As long as you meet the other eligibility criteria, of course. Myth number four, I wanted to hit the gym this week, but if I donate today, I won't be able to do it. Not true. If you donate blood today, the period of rest that's recommended from high intensity or vigorous activity is only 24 hours. And we do that so your body can rebuild up its plasma so that your blood pressure doesn't drop too low. After that 24 hours, you're good to get on that fitness grind. Myth number five, I don't have a rare blood type so it's no use to donate. Your function. This is absolutely false. No matter your blood type, your blood is still valuable and we need it. Yes, oh, negative blood is the universal donor and that's the one we give in the trauma situations where we don't have time to figure out the patient's blood type in the moment, but we need every single blood type so don't let that discourage you. Myth six, I'm taking a medication so I can't donate. It's a made up thing. In almost all cases, even if you're on a medication, you're still going to be good to donate. Your eligibility may depend on what your condition is that you're taking the medication for, but the medication itself will never really disqualify you. In some instances there may be a waiting period, but otherwise I can. You're good to go. And if you're concerned, ask the red cross folks that'll answer all of your questions. I'm actually going to be donating blood in the near future in memory of my mom and I kind of want to let you guys know where I'm doing it. Sort of do like a little meat and greet in donating blood, take some selfies doing all that, but I want to give you a challenge first. Get this video to 100,000 likes and I will reveal to you where I'm donating my blood so you can come with me donate together, take some selfies, have a good time, share it on social media and all that good stuff. But for now, check out my hospital vlog if you missed it and if you want to laugh about a nice little video click here and as always stay happy and healthy.