Donor Recognition Ceremony

It is always special to be able to go to a recognition ceremony and today I attended one at the Sheridan Events Suite. There were five of us from the team there. There were quite a few donors that I recognised or they recognised me….so much recognising going on lol.

We mingled and chatted and it was very relaxed. I had a good laugh with quite a few familiar faces. Then we all sat and there were some speakers. Firstly, a lady I have met before who had leukaemia and received countless blood and platelet transfusions. Then a man who helped start up The Donor Family Network for families who have had a family member who has passed away and their organs or tissues have been donated. Next was a lovely man who has eight year old twin boys. They were born at 26 weeks weighing 2lb each. They had all sorts of problems and wouldn’t be the healthy energetic lads they are today without numerous transfusions. Lastly, a woman who started up We Are Donors…they target children and young people and talk about organ and tissue donation helping to make it a subject that is easy to talk about within families and not something to be frightened of. They go into schools and universities. All of them were interesting and two of them made me fill up with their moving stories.

When I went to my car and set off the message on the screen said I needed to stop as my tyre pressure was very low. I’d driven over a bottle last night and got a slow puncture. I drove alongside Dan as we were going in the same direction and he said he would go into base with me (we were heading that way) and help me. He stuck some air in it and I phoned Kwik Fit. It was 16:45 and I was told I needed to be there by 17:30 if possible as they closed at 18:00. Well….the traffic was horrendous. I don’t know how people cope with rush hour traffic every day. I got to Kwik Fit at three minutes to six. I went in and said I knew I was too late but could I sort another day and time to go back. Steve was the nicest man ever….he repaired my puncture. We all like to get away at the end of a busy day, but he was a superstar.

It is the wonderful donors I saw today who had each donated over 100 bags of blood or over 250 bags of platelets and one man who had donated over 500 bags of platelets and people like Dan who help out a colleague and Steve who went the extra mile to sort my car who make the world a better place.

The photo is of the team who ran the ceremony. There were over 200 donors and partners attending.