'Nil Benefit' - Part 2 of my Anthony Nolan Experience

So having had my blood drawn at home and my blood pressure measured (more greens, more sleep, more physical jerks, less booze clearly required) I had a restless wait to find out whether I was a match match. Just when I thought maybe Anthony Nolan had forgotten about me I got a voicemail and an email:

Thank you for providing your latest blood samples in August 2021. Testing is now complete and we are pleased to inform you that you are compatible with the patient in need of a stem cell transplant. You’ve now been asked to donate your stem cells to give them a second chance of life.

There then followed a much longer email with many attachments and much information. The net effect of which was that I needed to go for a medical in a week and I'd be donating within a month. I was assured there would be no treadmill involved at the medical but, unsurprisingly, some very careful scrutiny of my blood.

I'm signed up for peripheral blood stem cell donation. A short course of injections over a few days then blood out of one arm through a machine harvesting the stem cells and back in the other arm. As a long time blood donor I've long lost any fear of needles, although keeping my arms immobile for 4 hours or so sounds like the perfect opportunity to finally give meditation a proper go or get fully immersed in Gotterdammerung.

The extraordinary science that enables this is so far beyond me I haven't even sought to understand it, trusting instead that there is little to worry about (unless my spleen is tender which, apparently, is not good, unhappily I have no idea where that is). Instead I have decided that this is a form of magic and I am just the magician's assistant.

The medical was pretty thorough and even included some light wrestling with the doctor which was unexpected. In fact it was the sort of thing a private doctor would probably charge an arm and a leg for so it was certainly not time wasted.

Unsurprisingly the consent forms and questionnaires are very extensive including some rather bizarre questions. Have you ever been bitten by a monkey? No. Have you ever ingested gold? Are you kidding, have you seen Salt Bae's prices!

The very last consent form necessarily listed the (unlikely) potential side effects of the donation process and the nurse had written in the section above setting out the benefit to the patient 'Nil benefit'. I didn't want to quarrel with a medical professional but the suggestion that there is no benefit to me as the donor could not be more wrong when I hope to be able to look back at this one day and feel that it serves as some small mitigation against my every mean action and ignoble thought. 

In any event it will be an experience and what is life for if not experiences?

If you're not on the stem cell register please think about signing up: https://www.anthonynolan.org/help-save-a-life/join-stem-cell-register

The Meaning of Life

What is the one thing that all parents everywhere want for their children above all other things? If your answer is not happiness I’d be genuinely interested to hear what it is. There’s a familiar expression, you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child. Our children’s pain, physical and emotional, weighs on us as much, if not more sometimes, as it does on them. 

Parents can go to extraordinary and sometimes ludicrous lengths to try and protect their children from pain and life’s vicissitudes. That this is ultimately both impossible and also a profoundly poor preparation for the necessary evolution into adulthood does not stop the effort being commonplace. 

However natural it is to want happiness for your children it is profoundly misguided to teach them that it should be their goal in life. Chasing happiness is like running after a will-o’-the-wisp it usually remains tantalisingly out of reach and a huge amount of effort can be expended in its pursuit. 

Instead, if children are taught to identify what is meaningful to them they will usually find that happiness is a happy by-product of its cultivation. The other significant thing about meaningful endeavour is that it is far less susceptible to the corrupting influence of money. We all know that money can’t buy happiness but that does not stop us feeling in our weaker moments that maybe it can. The irony being that time spent meaninglessly leaves a hole in our lives and we mistakenly believe that money will fill that hole. 

Work provides purpose in life and work pays the bills. But it is a statement of the obvious that not all work is meaningful to all people. When the work itself is meaningful then the income it earns becomes almost incidental, assuming it enables a living. However, some mistakenly seek meaning in the income alone, overlooking the intrinsic value of the endeavour itself. When in fact the intrinsic value IS the value. 

Meaning isn’t solely found in labour and work can be a means to an end. Many toil at dull or repetitive jobs to enable that which is truly meaningful to them but many just toil. E. M. Forster’s mantra ‘Only Connect’ probably resonates with me more than any words in literature. Not in a vapid networking sense of the expression but in terms of genuine, real and, yes meaningful, connection. 

We all know, unless we are extremely unfortunate, how powerful are those moments in life of profound connection, friendships made, true loves met, sorrow shared, joy expressed. That for me is where meaning resides. But meaning isn’t exclusively found in people. Using one’s body to its utmost, giving oneself to artistic expression, being in and tending to nature: there is meaning in all that. For hermits it’s isolation and contemplation. Meaning is myriad as people and where meaning goes happiness is sure to follow.