You don’t need a reason to donate blood. But if you did, Dave Caine has two.
Both his grandfather and his stepfather suffered from leukemia. His grandfather succumbed to the illness. His stepfather beat it and has been in remission for 11 years. Caine donates not only blood but blood platelets, which cancer patients often need, to honor his relatives.
Caine, of Hanover Township, Northampton County, is one of several people who reached out to me after reading my column a few weeks ago recounting how I started donating blood again after more than a decade of sitting on the sidelines. He thanked me for getting the word out and agreed to share his story to inspire people to donate platelets, too.
“It’s definitely something that’s needed,” he told me Thursday over lunch in Bethlehem.
Platelets are cells that play an important role in controlling bleeding and bruising. Some cancer patients require daily platelet transfusions for several weeks because they become anemic and lose platelets during their treatments, according to the Miller-Keystone Blood Center’s website.
Caine said his stepfather, Don Goldstein, went through that. He recalled hearing stories about how “every day he’s getting a unit of platelets.”
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