I made a foolish mistake in the implementation of my pre-surgical plan. I unfortunately waited too long to donate my own blood. I thought it was prudent to wait until after I had my Cardiac Cath to go and donate my own blood. The problem is that now that I'm ready to go and donate my blood, I recalled that Dr. Lamelas asked to not donate my blood after 30 days before my surgery. The surgery is February 19. Oh, well.

Nevertheless, family and friends may donate blood on my behalf. Since several folks have asked me about that, I'm posting the information necessary to do that here.



Blood donation may be done through the Community Blood Center of South Florida (http://cbcsf.org/index.jsp). They have locations from Palm Beach down to the Keys. It is easy to find a location just by typing your zip code on their web site. Their web site also provides hours of operations and a way to make an appointment.

The information you need to provide CBC to ensure that the blood you donate is actually used if I need it is the following:

My Name:	WIFREDO ESTEBAN
Date of Surgery:	FEBRUARY 19, 2009
Hospital:	MOUNT SINAI MEDICAL CENTER

My blood type is O-Positive; therefore, I can only receive type O blood (Positive or Negative). So if any of you are of type O and I end up needing a transfusion, there's a chance I'll have a little of you in me. If you're not type O, you can still go and donate on my behalf but your blood will not be used in me, but I will appreciate and value your gesture just the same.

You may donate blood on my behalf up to February 14. If you go after that date, your donation may not make it to the hospital on time.

Make sure you have a good meal before you donate blood! Burger King has a special running right now: Whopper Juniors for a buck! Have one before you go.

All of the above information and procedure was very efficiently communicated to me by Joyce from CBC's Plantation office. Joyce was immensely helpful and thorough is setting up this whole thing at their end. Joyce, thank you very much for your help! You and what you did are an important link in this whole process. You said you'd read this when you get home. So, when you read it, print it out and show it to your bosses or give them the web address; I'm not sure this alone will get you a big fat raise, but it should go into your file and certainly taken into consideration during your next review.

Throughout my life I've tried to donate blood several times but I've never been able to do it. For some reason, I test positive for TB (tuberculosis) and blood banks apparently don't like that.

Finally, I feel like a fool for not paying closer attention to the time limit the doctor imposed on me; but, short of changing the date of the surgery at this time, there isn't much I can do about it.

If you end up donating blood on my behalf, come back here and post a comment and let us know about your experience. If you want, send me a photo via email and I'll post it here as well.