The RH Factor, explained

When I was born, I was told by my mom, that she was much more afraid that my father would pass out during my birth as he had in childbirth class than she was afraid of the emergency C-section.  I was one of the last babies born at that hospital and my birth, had it happened several years prior, my father would have had to choose between my mother and me.  Luckily, thanks to emergency medicine and nurses like his mother in the delivery room, that didn't happen.

Since then, it has been my dad's goal to give blood whenever he can because he is O positive and that is the universal donor for blood.

As a child, my best friend had a hole in her heart and it caused her to have massive nosebleeds that would dye several facecloths red.  I know she had to go to children's hospital often because as she grew so did the hole.

When she was ten years old, they deemed her to be physically mature enough to get a surgery that only adults had done.  Becca survived the surgery and is living well.  Thank you Boston Children's Hospital for helping her keep living because otherwise by the time that she was an adult I would have lost my best friend.  When Becca had this surgery, my father donated a significant amount of blood so that if she lost any blood there would be enough to replace what she had lost.

Becca is now a researcher as her father survived cancer four times.  She is one of five children that I had the opportunity to play with as a child.  It is because of her oldest sister, Bridget, that I labelled pinwheels, "Thank you Bridgets," after my 2nd birthday for several weeks.

This is why in the thank you address on National Olympic Day, I have pinwheels on my table.  There is a dual meaning though.

Thank you Bridget is for my childhood friend's older sister but it is also for a teammate at Penn State who never failed to make an NCAA championship, made two world championship teams, was effectively coached by Coach Sullivan, and unlike me, she made the 2012 Olympic Team.  Her name is  Bridget Franek.  She runs for the Oregon Track Club.  Both her parents ran in college, she played a lot of soccer, and won multiple Ohio State Track and Field Championships.  She runs the 3k steeple, which is by far the coolest track and field event, because you jump over six hurdles AND A WATER PIT!

Anyway, go give blood at your local blood bank and watch the World Track and Field Championships on Flotrack or USATF.tv

HG