Blood is Life and Life is Blood

This was a few years back when I was in Kathmandu. It was on one of those usual mornings, when one of my neighbors, Ajay Karki, knocked on my door to give me an invitation card. I opened the door for him and was petrified by what I saw. Ajay was shuddering really badly as had no control over himself. I tried to hold him from falling down but his legs had already given up and I was not able to keep him from falling completely on the floor. His face turned bluish and was sweating a lot. By that point I was more then terrified! He was still holding the invitation card of his brother´s marriage; that he had come to deliver to us.

Not knowing what to do, I still did manage somehow to bring him inside my house. I called his mother to let her know what was going on with him and also to ask her help. Poor lady! She came to my house running along. She was very worried but also frustrated at the same time since this was not the first time this had happened to Ajay. "He is just dragging his life like this, Anil, it is better if all this just ends today", his mother said to me. "Just look at him right now. So helpless and hopeless! His heart does not work properly because his blood is thicker then it should be", she continued.

We immediately took him to the nearest hospital. The doctor told us what his mother had already told me. His blood was thicker then it normally should be and that´s why his heart could not pump the blood properly. Doctor explained to us, if his blood would not brought back to the normal condition he would eventually die in few days. He was only 21 years old. This terrible news hit everyone in the room like a lightning and all his loved ones started crying. Ajay gained conscious after few minutes - he seemed as frightened as a bird in the storm. He in desperate need for help & support, after all someone had just announced that he was going to die. I looked at his poor mother and others who were at the phase of giving up all the hopes they had for him. If there was anything I wanted at that time, it was to help Ajay and save his life.

Everybody knows that blood is vital for our body but we just take it for granted until one is faced with such a life threatening situation then it forces us to ponder deep and hard that ´blood is life´. Then suddenly I realized deep hidden message on the slogan ´Blood donation is life donation´. It was so much true.

Recently I came across news about shortage of blood in the blood bank in Nepal. It brought back that old memory alive and I thought I wanted to help out people in Nepal who are in desperate need for blood like my neighbor Ajay once was. So I implemented my desire to help by coming up with a blood donation program in Nepal through Motherland Nepal, a non-profit organization established on 2005 here in California for charity deeds. As a president of The Motherland Nepal, I decided to organize a blood drive on August 7, 2009 in Shankar Dev Campus (Kathmandu) in conjunction with Creative Media Group of Nepal. On that day 61 individuals donated their blood to the blood bank. For the blood drive program we requested our friends in the Bay area and they wholeheartedly supported – it was a big success. We will keep continuing the blood drive programs in the future, whenever needed. A healthy person can donate their blood regularly every 3 months without any side effect. During my last visit in Nepal I met with Ajay and was so glad to see him healthy and happy. His life was saved as he underwent a heart surgery in time and afterwords led a healthy life. Now he is a very happy and lucky man with a beautiful wife and a son.

To find out more about the blood donation please, visit this web site:

http://themotherlandnepal.org/

http://www.youtube.com/user/MotherlandNepal