Goody Two Shoes

A few weeks ago, I hosted my co-author on a new book project at my home in Boulder, so we could begin outlining the story of how he gave one his kidneys to a woman from Ethiopia, whom he’d never met. Just because.

Harold is tall and affable and has a bushy grey mustache that dominates his face. He’s the kind of guy you meet once and feel as though you’ve been pals forever. He met his wife on a blind date and recently celebrated their 25^th wedding anniversary. He has a daughter, whose artistic creativity he regularly showcases on his Facebook page. He works with his best friend from high school who was the other half of the class-clown duo, their late ‘70s “Joke of the Day” morning program a huge hit until banned by the principal for overstepping the line.

Harold chaired his neighborhood’s annual blood drive in Virginia for years until he and his family relocated to Los Angeles, where he launched a new neighborhood blood drive program. And in between the blood drives he coordinates, he commutes to his local Red Cross to donate blood every eight weeks. Like clockwork. Just because. 

To put it succinctly, he’s a true mensch.

Since first encountering the force for good known as Harold, I’ve had the privilege of also meeting the recipient of his gifted kidney, a diminutive and soft-spoken woman who immigrated to the U.S. in 1987 and then spent more than a decade on the kidney transplant list. That the paths of these two conspicuously dissimilar people crossed in a manner so profound makes their saga a true love story, not in the romantic sense, but in the unconditional sense the Greeks called “agape”—a selfless love that neither demands nor expects anything in return.

While Harold and I were writing together at a coffee shop during his recent visit, a woman whose misfortune was apparent approached the outdoor area where he and I sat with our laptops. Her weather-worn skin and long stringy hair piled haphazardly atop her head suggested a life hard-lived. Wearing thread-bare jeans and a ratty faded print top, she looked directly at Harold, as if deliberately selecting him from the array of people that filled every table on the patio. 

“Excuse me, sir,” she said, her gaze never wavering. “Could you give me some money so I could get a meal?”

Many of the coffee shop’s patrons—myself included—had turned to face the woman during this encounter, but quickly returned to their laptops and books and lattes once they heard her request. Not Harold. Without fanfare, my giant altruistic buddy stood and walked to her side, discreetly pulled a ten from his wallet and engaged in a brief and muted conversation before returning to our table. Before I could say it, Harold cut me off. “I’m not a goody two shoes. I’m not.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, smiling playfully because I’d just witnessed yet another example of this man’s kind and gentle approach to having an impact in the world. “That woman,” Harold said, “that’s my mom. That’s my wife. That’s my daughter.” And I got it. I totally got it.

I believe this essence of agape dwells within us all. It’s there. It’s real. And in giving expression to it—as a pint of donated blood, or a ten dollar bill for food, or any number of other ways—we multiply its impact exponentially. 

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, free.  Click here and go to the link below the "Buy the Book" button.  Zuzu's Petals is also available on Kindle and Nook.  Hardcover signed and inscribed copies are available at  www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy reading!

Cruise Connections

Ever since she could speak – or so it seems – my daughter Clare has asked to go on a cruise. My husband, Jeff, would rather stick a fork in his eye than subject himself to being “trapped on a floating hotel with two thousand drunk strangers.” Me, I don’t mind the floating hotel part, but the frat party atmosphere I imagined as being fundamental to a cruise was something I outgrew in my 20s…when I could often be found at the center of many a chugging contest.

This past February, with Clare’s 13^th birthday looming and the pressure mounting to top her previous birthday celebration (think: stretch limo filled with girls in “Disney Princess Reject” costumes laughing and screaming and singing their way around Boulder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBtPKpP8_mc), I stumbled upon 300,000 credit card reward points I didn’t know I had. 

Helllloooo, Carnival Cruise Lines and Happy Birthday, Clare! 

Floating Hotel, here we come!

Within hours, I had booked flights to Los Angeles, a cruise to Mexico, even paid the standard gratuities – all with points. Clare and I left last Monday – coincidentally Jeff’s birthday; I told him his birthday gift was that he didn’t have to go with us. 

To my surprise, I discovered that while, yes, half the boat seemed to be liquored up before departure, the other half were Mormons, able to balance out the more alcohol-prone passengers. Clare and I were assigned to a dinner table with six people: four girls who had recently graduated from high school and two moms, all of them Mormon. 

While I quickly learned that our religious beliefs were quite different, I peppered each of them with questions to discover something we might have in common, a connection of some sort. Why? Because I truly believe that if we dig deep enough we can find some overlapping experience, belief, desire, or value with anyone, regardless of our obvious differences.

One of the moms, Heather, asked me what I did for a living and, well, you know where this conversation went: the life-saving impact of volunteer blood donors. Immediately, one of the young women’s eyes lit up, and while her friends’ expressions reflected their distaste for needles, Stacy told me that she had recently made her very first blood donation. I asked her how old she was. “Seventeen,” she said. I told her that I got to meet a group of my actual blood donors once and that one of them was also only seventeen when she had decided to participate in her high school’s blood drive and her blood then made its way to my bedside in the ICU. I told her how each one of my blood donors had made it possible for me to hang out longer on earth, even to be on this cruise with my daughter. I told her that without every single one of those pints of blood I received, the adorable kid sitting next to me (yes, Clare blushed) would be growing up without a mom.

At that point, Stacy seemed to understand that by sharing the story of how I got to personally thank some of my blood donors I was actually thanking her on behalf of her blood recipient. And she got it. Sure, it was only an hour of her time, and sure, a lot of kids had done it. But now she seemed to understand how amazing and generous her gift of blood had been. She might have even understood that a connection – if only in spirit – is forged with every pint of blood that someone chooses to donate anonymously. The way I see it, all those patients in need of blood transfusions are really just “friends we’ve never met.” And who wouldn’t want to help a friend?

No matter our politics, religion, socio-economic status, age, musical tastes, or whether we prefer our Philly cheesesteaks “wit Whiz” or “widdout,” blood – both the giving and the receiving of it – is one of the most universal connections we will ever experience in life. How cool is that?

Blood-red Virgin Daiquiris and Stephen King--For the Non-Mormon, Non-Drunk Passengers

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Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, free.  Click here and go to the link below the "Buy the Book" button.  Zuzu's Petals is also available on Kindle and Nook.  Hardcover signed and inscribed copies are available at  www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy reading!

One Smart Nurse

I was told there were flowers—lots and lots of flowers.  And the occasional balloon bouquet.  I was told they arrived almost daily and, one by one, they were sent down to the children’s area of the hospital.  My ICU room was small and every bit of space was needed for machines and IV poles and the lone reclining chair in which one family member or close friend would spend the night.  Besides, I wasn’t exactly what you’d call “responsive” during those weeks. It wasn’t like I could actually appreciate the flowers and balloons.

And then, I was told, the flowers stopped arriving.  And in their place came notes—notes that said things like “I gave blood in honor of Lauren today” and “We set up a blood drive to help Lauren.”

Why the change?

A nurse. One very smart ICU nurse who knew that I was draining the local blood supply with my nonstop internal hemorrhaging.  She saw the needs of the various people involved: my family’s need to “do” something; neighbors’, friends’ and work colleagues’ need to show they cared; the local blood center’s need to replenish the red blood cells, platelets, and plasma that I was using at a disproportionate rate; and, of course, my need for more blood. And then that one smart nurse offered my family a suggestion that would meet all of our needs.

“You might want to ask Lauren’s friends who are sending flowers to give blood instead,” she said.  My family responded with enthusiasm.  The only bit of information they wanted in order to get started was how our friends could direct the blood they donated to me.

“Well, that’s just it,” the nurse said. “They can’t. These donations would be in honor of Lauren, but not necessarily for Lauren. But that doesn’t mean it’s not helping.  It’s replacing the blood that she’s been using.  And some of it might make its way to her, but there are no guarantees.” 

Life in the ICU

That was good enough for my family. They began putting the word out in full force, not just locally but to friends and extended family members across the U.S.  My mom manned our home phone and asked everyone who called to give an hour of their time and a pint of their blood. My siblings sent mass e-mails, which were then forwarded on from there. One neighbor organized a blood drive at her school while another organized a neighborhood drive. One of my brother’s clients hosted a drive and had everyone who donated sign a get-well poster for me. My former employer launched their inaugural blood drive, which has become an annual event still in place today.

By giving the loved ones of an ICU patient a focus—something proactive they could do when there was little else to do but wait—one nurse set in motion a ripple effect that would save countless lives with the blood that was donated as a result. Imagine the impact if we could mobilize nurses worldwide to offer this one simple suggestion to their patients’ families.

I wish I knew which of my dozens of nurses it was who made that one simple suggestion during my illness twelve years ago.  I would thank her for knowing how important it was to replenish the blood supply, as well as for understanding how badly my family needed her directive for their own survival of the ICU.

Whoever you are: damn you’re good!  And, oh yeah, thank you.

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Lauren's book, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances (In The Telling Press, 2011), is the #1 Top Rated memoir on Kindle. Hardcover copies are available at www.amazon.com, or signed copies can be ordered at www.laurenwardlarsen.com. Happy Reading!

Lighten Up!

Years ago, I spent an evening with a grown man dressed in spandex tights, dark glasses, and a big bulbous red outfit that was allegedly a blood drop. Thankfully, it was not a date.

His name was Elmer, and he was pushing 90 at the time. His jokes were bad and his singing worse. He was part of the “entertainment” at a blood center event in Michigan at which I was giving the keynote address. I like to think of myself as an engaging speaker but, truly, it was Elmer who stole the show that night.

For decades, Elmer had been the perfect example of a “loyal” blood donor. Every eight weeks he was at the blood center rolling up his sleeve. When he turned 87, he began taking medication that permanently deferred him from donating. And that’s when Elmer morphed into his new role as the joke-telling, hand-holding, off-key-singing blood drop that showed up at blood drives to help ease the tension for first-time donors by sharing a laugh with them. Can you imagine any first-time donor being nervous once they laid eyes on him? At times, the joke was on Elmer: More often than not, people mistook him for a polyp!

In my work with blood centers over the years, I’ve seen some fairly bizarre stuff – and by bizarre, I mean fun! I’ve seen grown adults shouting out their financial pledges just to see a colleague get shaved. I watched a blood center CEO take a pie in the face for the sake of employee morale (my own hand might’ve been on the pie tin at the time). I’ve seen a blood drive recruiter wear more red at one time than should be legal (you know who you are, Dan). I’ve witnessed collections staff forming instantaneous human pyramids and blood recipients dressing as bloodhounds and howling their way around town on scavenger hunts. And two weeks ago at the Association of Donor Recruitment Professionals’ meeting, I saw Wayne’s World mullets and teased-out Cyndi Lauper hair, parachute pants, and off-the-shoulder new wave tunics being sported by a group of crazed blood banking professionals on a jam-packed dance floor. All this “bizarre-ity” adds up to a heck of a lot of fun.

Let’s face it: Working to save lives through blood transfusion is serious business. Those who work in blood banking have all met the patient with a remarkable medical story involving massive amounts of blood. Or the doctor working in a rural community who ran short on O-neg. Or the parent who lost a child after years of cancer treatments involving regular transfusions. Many have experienced the scare of a severe blood shortage, or the challenge of managing donor turnout after a horrific event like the Virginia Tech shootings, 9/11, or Hurricane Katrina.

All too often, those of us who work in "life or death" situations--whether it's blood banking or critical care in the hospital or disaster relief--feel the weight of our responsibility on a regular basis, and we lose touch with the lighter side of our personalities. After all, patients are depending on us, so we must take our work seriously.

But that doesn’t mean we must always take ourselves seriously. So I say: Lighten up! That, and impose an age limit on wearing spandex.




Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!  

To Russia With Love

Peter was a Communist.  They all were: everyone who walked into my hospital room during my “crazy phase”—that ten-day period in the ICU during which encephalopathy caused me to scream about brains marching up my bed, yell for someone to help all the babies that were trapped in bags all over the floor, and accuse anyone wearing a white lab coat of being a Communist spy with designs of performing experiments on me (they were obviously—according to my warped view of reality—trying to “steal my sperm and eggs for evil purposes”).

But Peter?  He even had the accent.  And every time he spoke with my family members (who for whatever reason I actually remembered were family members), they always laughed.  He was a comedic Communist, that Peter.

Weeks after the encephalopathy dissipated and I moved to a step-down unit, Peter still stopped by my room during his coffee breaks.  He would spend a few minutes with me, or chat with my mother and share a laugh with her.  In time, I came to realize that those visits were as important to Peter as they were to my family and me.  How often had Peter come to bond with a patient in the ICU only to see his or her body sent to the morgue after days, weeks of heroic effort to save them?  Visiting me was, perhaps, Peter’s way of reminding himself that happy endings were possible in the ICU.

Months after my discharge from the hospital, I sent Peter a gift and thanked him for all he’d done, not just for my well-being, but for my family’s.  His ability to help them find humor during the darkest days of my illness was a skill not likely taught in his nursing program.  But Peter instinctively understood and nurtured the need for laughter, for finding whatever joy was possible for the loved ones of the critically ill. 

It would be years before I’d reconnect with Peter online.  He had since moved to Russia—ironically—to work as a nurse practitioner for the Foreign Service.  After the usual “how’ve you been” and “thank you again for all you did for me” that accompanies reuniting with those who helped save your life, we launched a nice friendship.  Seeing that I was open to the Mystery (capital M intended) of life, Peter shared with me a dream he’d had while I was ill and not expected to live.  In it, he saw me laughing with my husband, and that confused him.  “Lauren!” he said to me in the dream, “this can’t be! I mean, you died!”  I laughed at him and replied, “Oh Peter, that was such a long time ago!” That dream—he told me—had provided him with the hope he needed to go back into work for another 18-hour shift and give me his all. And eventually, his all worked.

Peter also told me that he’d wanted so badly to donate blood for me while I was ill, but that his having thalassemia prevented him from doing so.  But that doesn’t stop him from helping other blood recipients today. Historically, the blood services in Moscow only accepted blood donations from Russians, but Peter was able to persuade them otherwise.  64 donors—only 12 of whom were Russian—turned out for the first-ever blood drive at Peter’s workplace.  The local media was all over the story, and the Embassy Moscow Blood Drive is now an annual event.

Peter was one of more than 80 nurses who worked hard to save my life in the ICU.  And while burnout led him to seek a calmer arena within healthcare, today he continues to save lives—more than he even knows. Most of the people who’ve been touched by Peter’s blood drive efforts won’t ever know that he was the driving force behind the life-saving blood they received.  They won’t track him down to say “thanks for saving my life.” But I know.  So here’s to Peter in Russia. With love. 




Download a PDF of the first 4 chapters of Lauren's memoir, Zuzu's Petals: A True Story of Second Chances, FREE here.  Click on the link below the green "Buy the Book" button.  Happy reading!