Blood and Dragons (and antibodies)

This is less a political essay than a diary entry. But, here goes.

I may...repeat may...have had Covid-19 already. May not have. But may.

Way back in early February, I and everyone in my family came down with what seemed to be a very bad flu or cold. I had fever, a wracking cough, and, most of all, extreme fatigue. And I mean extreme. I spent something like two weeks doing very little more than laying on the sofa and trying hard just to keep my eyes open. (Didn’t need to self-isolate because I basically...er, ah...didn’t move.)

I and everyone in my family sought professional medical help. But, as I say, this was in February. Covid-19 was just starting to become a problem in the USA. We hadn’t recently traveled anywhere overseas at that time. We hadn’t been in the company of anyone who had. So, not even our very competent medical advisors thought of coronavirus. And even if they had, there were no test kits available.

Anyway, after a month of feeling pretty awful, we were all up and running again. By that time, of course, Covid-19 was everywhere and I began to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we had had the virus and didn’t know it.

If so, then I would have the antibodies to the virus already in my blood stream. And, if that were true, then I could donate blood for use in what’s called “convalescent plasma therapy.” I hadn’t run across the term before, but as I understand it, you take blood from someone who has already recovered from a disease and inject it into someone who is still sick. The antibodies in the donor blood then go zap the bad guy viroids. (If you’re interested, here is an article on the topic.)

I would love to be able to do this. It would be so terribly cool. Sort of like being a reverse vampire. You give blood, and maybe life, rather than take it.

So, I set out to find out how I could sign up to be a convalescent plasma donor. Turns out that’s easier said than done, just yet. Several organizations are gearing up to start taking serum donations. Among the places I’ve found doing so are the Red Cross and, in my own locality, We Are Blood.

The kicker is that you need to be able to prove that you have the antibodies in your blood stream. At the moment, the sort of test required...an coronavirus antibody titer test (I’m not making that up)... is available in only a few places. And one of those places is not (alas) Texas. So, looks like I’m out of the game for a while. Though I’m hoping to get off the bench just as soon as tests show up here in the Austin-area.

Give A Gift Of Life

But if you’re interested in being a serum donor, check and see if the Covid-19 titer test is available in your neck of the woods. It would be very, very cool if we could organize a platoon of donors to be of serum service!

So when you get a moment, hop on over to Google or DuckDuckGo or where-ever and do a search for “Coronavirus titer test near me.” If you’re lucky, test kits will be available, and you’ll soon be able to start helping save lives.

In the meantime, I’ve set up an appointment to give blood in the near future -- or, more specifically, to donate platelets, which have to do with things like healing.  I’m AB+, a fairly rare group, and it turns out that us AB-babies are in demand for both platelet and plasma donations.

So, that’s pretty cool, too. And if you can’t get a Covid-19 titer test, consider just giving blood, or platelets or “double red” or whatever. 

It’s a way of being on the side of the angels, and of pissing off the Grim Reaper, at a time when so many angels and their supporters are needed...and there is way too much Death to deal with.

Onward and upward.

mjt 

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About me: I’m a writer and former journalist who has published material on everything from computers to the Jazz Age. (Among my small claims to fame is that I interviewed Steve Jobs just after that talented if complicated man got kicked out of Apple, and just before the company’s Board came begging him to come back.)

Please check out my new book, Padre: To The Island, a meditation on mortality, grief, and joy, based on the lives and deaths of two of the most amazing and unconventional people I ever met, my mother and father.

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