My blood type is ‘O’ negative.  It was definitely on more than one occasion over the course of my twenty five marriage to my first wife Shelley that she suggested I needed to donate blood.  Apparently, ‘O’ negative is the universal donor; anyone can accept transfused blood from an ‘O’ negative donor.

Still, I never managed to find the time to become a blood donor.  Except for one occasion when I was on assignment in my company’s Texas Division.  I still have the t-shirt I received from the friendly folks in the Red Cross bloodmobile.  It says “Holiday Hero” over a stylized American flag.

After Shelley died I decided to revisit the whole blood donor thing and start donating regularly.  It was kind of a tribute to her, I guess.  I know she herself had had to have a transfusion when our second daughter was born (prematurely and by ‘C’-section).

Last evening was my tenth donation to Canadian Blood Services.  And I learned something new.

Not only is my blood type the universal donor, but the donor screening nurse also noted that I am negative for cytomegalovirus.

“For what?” I said.

“Cytomegalovirus.” (I had to ask the nurse who did the needlework what the name was a second time in order to remember it.)

“That’s a big deal?” I asked.

“Oh yes.  If a baby needs an emergency transfusion, blood like yours is pretty much at the front of the line.”

I didn’t know that.  I didn’t know what cytomegalovirus was either.  The nurse manning the needle tried to explain it to me after I asked her about it.  She said she would look it up for me, but I said I could look it up on the internet.  She then asked if I was around animals much.

“What sort of animals?”

“Oh, dogs, cats, any animals.”

Apparently, the majority of people have been exposed to cytomegalovirus and have the antibodies.  And their pets are the usual vector.

I looked cytomegalovirus up on wikipedia.

I guess it’s some sort of human herpes virus, but the section on “Relevance to Blood Donors” backed up what the screening nurse had told me:

Although the risks discussed above are generally low, CMV assays are part of the standard screening for non-directed blood donation (donations not specified for a particular patient) in the U.S. CMV-negative donations are then earmarked for transfusion to infants or immunocompromised patients. Some blood donation centers maintain lists of donors whose blood is CMV negative due to special demands.

My dad used to always say, “Son.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you’re special.  It means that you’re f-cking retarded!”

However, in this case, it feels kind of good to be a little bit “special”.