It was about 18 months ago I stood there, arm in arm with my mother watching and willing my father to live.

He'd endured a triple bypass and we were watching him silently bleed out in front of us. The night before a nurse had accidentally given him a blood thinner and his poor body was unable to clot and heal properly. Amidst the fog of silent praying, hand wringing and incessant questions to the nurse and doctor assigned to his care, I noticed one thing.

The bags of blood that were slowly being emptied in an effort to keep him alive. At the time I gave little thought to the anonymous strangers who had donated blood for occasions such as this. 

But when my dad began to recover I did.

As a teenager I'd grown up watching my beloved Nanny battle cancer and endure operation after operation in a vain battle to get rid of it. For one particularly major operation I'd gone down and donated blood for it myself. She had attributed her particular recovery that time to my blood which was a badge of honour I wore proudly.

But I hadn't donated since then.

Late last year Kerri wrote a post about the importance of blood donation. Then Bern did. And I remembered the bags.

The ones that had saved my dad's life. And I wanted to fill some as well.

So today I went and donated blood. I also signed up to be part of the Bone Marrow Registry.  Again, this was something I'd been meaning to do for ages but simply hadn't got round to.

In exchange for sitting in a chair and squeezing a ball I won the admiration of the nurses, who I am sure make everybody feel like they are super special, but definitely did with me. And I was also given an adorable koala bear toy to take home as well.

Frankly the people who run the Australian Red Cross Blood Bank are angels in human form, and when I grow up I want to be a Red Cross Tea Lady. I have to tell you the apple juice and cheese and crackers I chowed down on afterwards tasted particularly good.

It didn't take long and really anyone that gives you official permission not to exercise for 24 hours gets a big tick in my book.

They told me supplies were low and donations were very welcome. So if you can, check out the conditions for donating and pop in.

I recommend the apple juice.