Abbotsford West MLA Mike de Jong jumped up into a Canadian Blood Services (CBS) lounger with a laugh.
He’s been donating blood for years — he even pulls out his original, faded Red Cross card as proof. But this will be his first donation of plasma, and he’s excited to have the new service in his riding.
As he settles in, a little boy smiles shyly at him. He and his mom have been walking around thanking the donors for their time and efforts. They are Megan and Caius Knight, and they ask the politician for a fun group selfie to mark the occasion.
“I didn’t know I was going to cry,” she says.
Last year, she had a sore back for two days. One morning she woke up and couldn’t walk. She had caught a virus that made her immediately paralyzed. She lucked out, she says, by having access to a special plasma-based treatment.
And on Tuesday, at the newest plasma collection centre in Canada, she was able to thank donors personally for helping get her life back.
She wipes tears away as she tells her story, and thanks de Jong and others profusely.
So does Barbara Schmidt, from Chilliwack. She spoke officially at the ribbon-cutting event, at 32700 South Fraser Way, explaining that without them she also wouldn’t have her life back.
She recieves immunoglobins, which is made from plasma. She was born with an immunodeficiency that meant she was often sick as a child. For example, she says, she had the chicken pox three times. As she entered her 40s, she was getting sick so often that she was often in the hospital and even required an oxygen tank.
Every bug became pnuemonia, and her lungs were so damaged the doctors could not even tell when she had it and when she didn’t.
Immunoglobins changed all that, eventually. After a few years of treatment she was able to live a pretty normal life, and she was moved to tears looking out at a sea of donors and supporters.
After the ceremony, she moved from chair to chair to personally thank people for their time and make connections.
Abbotsford is one of the province’s most generous cities when it comes to blood donations, and part of that is due to a huge movement in the Sikh community. Speakers thanked the community for their efforts in pushing for blood donations.
Donating plasma is similar to donating blood, with some key differences. Instead of needing to wait up to six weeks between donations, people can donate every two weeks. That’s because the system returns everything but the plasma back to the donor.
Plasma is the protein-rich liquid in blood that helps other blood components circulate throughout your body. More than half (55 per cent) of your blood is plasma. It protects your body from illness, infection and excessive bleeding, and it can be used for transfusion or to make medications.
Globally, there is a shortage of immunoglobulins and plasma needed to make them because there is a growing number of conditions they treat.
The new Abbotsford centre is one of six dedicated plasma donor centres CBS have opened since 2020, with five more to follow by 2024. Nationally, thousands more plasma donors are needed to meet patients’ needs in Canada today and into the future.
People who are unable to donate plasma or blood can still help patients by registering to become stem cell or organ and tissue donors, or by giving financially, volunteering and encouraging others to become donors. Download the GiveBlood app, call 1-888-2-DONATE (1-888-236-6283) or book now at blood.ca.
READ MORE: How Abbotsford became and remained a jump rope hot spot
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