East Carolinian

Issue date: 2/19/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Aileen Devlin

Health and Exercise 1000 students squared off yesterday in a battle to win the title of giving the most units of blood to the annual blood drive on campus. The "ECU Blood Drive Challenge," sponsored by the College of Health and Human Performance and Campus Recreation and Wellness, took place from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Student Recreation Center.

Their goal: 436 units of blood.

Although the drive is traditionally a friendly competition between health and exercise students, this year, organizers wanted to go bigger - advertising the drive all over campus and welcoming students of all majors as well as faculty and staff.

"We do this as a friendly challenge between Health and Exercise 1000, but this time we wanted to go a little bit bigger and just challenge the whole campus," said Debra Tavasso, health professor in the College of Health and Human Performance.

Tavasso has been involved with the drive for five or six years, and offers extra credit to her students who give, but says she hopes that once they give one time, students will be inclined to give again.

"The real important thing here is if students get out here one time and have a positive experience, they'll give again in the future," Tavasso said.

One former ECU student is a testimony to the generosity of students and others who give blood.

Kristin Brown, a 2007 ECU graduate, was diagnosed last year with aplastic anemia - a rare disorder that causes almost complete malfunction of the bone marrow - a disorder that Brown says only two in a million people have.

Since her diagnosis in May of 2008, Brown has received between 50 and 100 blood transfusions and was on campus to express her gratitude to those who donated blood yesterday.

"My blood numbers are normal and I'm very thankful for those who have donated blood, because they saved my life," Brown said.

Brown received a bone marrow transplant from her sister - ECU sophomore Katlin Cartwright in October - and was home before Thanksgiving of last year.

"I proved all the doctors wrong," Brown said. "The doctors said I would be in the hospital for 90 days, and I was out in 43."

Although Brown has a success story, aplastic anemia is fatal if not treated.

One American is diagnosed with a bone marrow disease every 17 minutes, according to the Aplastic Anemia and MDS International Foundations. Brown says that she is lucky; she says that there was only a 20 percent chance that her sister's bone marrow would be a match.

That's one reason why Tavasso says that the blood drive is an important way to give back, even if a student doesn't have time (the process takes about an hour) or money to contribute to their community.

"For every unit of blood you give, you can save three lives," Tavasso said. "This is an easy way you can make a difference, and you might actually save a life."

The ECU Blood Drive Challenge collected 391 units of blood, a record-breaking number for the drive; last year the drive solicited 387 units.

"[We had] a great turnout for the ECU Blood Challenge today, in spite of the weather," Tavasso said. "We didn't quite make our goal of 436 units of blood but we did set a new record for donations. This challenge gets better and better each year and we can thank our wonderful student body for responding to our challenge to come out and give the gift of life."



This writer can be contacted at editor@theeastcarolinian.com.

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