Things I have learnt

In the last 2 days I have learnt 1 valuable snippet of information and 1 valuable lesson.

The first and maybe most important. Did you know that if you are in need of numerous blood transfusions due to accident or illness, you are only allotted a certain number of units ? Once your lot is up then that's it, you have to hope and pray that people will go to the blood bank and donate in your name, however many units are donated will be the extra number of units you are given.
I only learnt this by reading about a man in our area who was in a serious car accident over the weekend, he is in critical condition and his family were asking people to donate because his allotment was almost up.
If you are a blood donor or feel led, maybe you could go and donate for this man, his name is William Bruce Somers and he is a patient at PRMC in Salisbury, MD.
If you'd like to learn more about donating blood then go here

The lesson I learnt was that even teens who act like selfish brats and have a sense of entitlement may in fact be wonderful caring people who just haven't learnt to fully express that side of themselves yet. I learnt this from Victoria today. I was talking to her about how I was unaware about the whole blood donation status and how scary it was that in reality someone could potentially die because they were no longer able to receive blood, I had expressed how frustrated I was that I couldn't donate. She sat and listened, once we were done she grabbed the phone, dialed 411 and asked the operator to connect her to our local blood bank, the next thing I knew she was asking the lady at the blood bank to please schedule her for the first available blood donation appt. My jaw dropped, this is a child who passes out at the sight of blood and to this day cries when she has to get a shot, yet here she was making an appt to donate her first pint of blood.
Once the questions had been asked and the appt made I asked her what had possessed her to do it, "It's just my way of giving back, if it weren't for a donor I wouldn't be able to walk now. It would be horrible if that man died because there wasn't enough blood for him."
Here I was thinking that she had forgotten about the family who had donated their loved ones tendons so another person could walk again and that she was taking life for granted, when in reality all she was doing was waiting for the right time to come for her to give back again.

As her Mom I felt both ashamed and proud, ashamed for assuming she was an ungrateful brat, before giving her the benefit of the doubt and proud that I have raised a young woman who is not only beautiful on the outside but on the inside too.