When Lynda Pawlowski went to Anaheim, Calif. in August of 1992 for a convention, she didn’t know she would be hit by a drunken driver at 1 p.m. on a beautiful afternoon.

She also didn’t know she would receive 63 pints of blood in her three month stay at the University of California at Irvine hospital before she was flown back to her hometown of Jefferson, Iowa.

After Pawlowski received 30 pints of blood from California blood banks, her friends and family back in Iowa donated the additional 33 pints of blood that were sent to California to bring Pawlowski back from the brink of death.

Sixty-three pints of blood. That means sixty-three people thought giving blood was important enough to give up an hour of their time, trek it over to a blood bank or blood drive and give up one pint of their blood.

If this story was all the motivation you need to give blood, drop the newspaper right now and get your veins to the Great Hall of the Memorial Union for the blood drive going on until 3 p.m. today. If you need a little more convincing, read on.

After working with three ISU blood drives, I have heard every excuse in the book for not giving blood. These excuses range from the stupid, “I can’t give blood because I’m on a diet and I can’t have cookies,” to the even more stupid, “I can’t give blood because I’m going to mug night.”

In this column I’m going to challenge some of these excuses for not giving blood. The first excuse and the one I hear most often is “I don’t like needles.” O.K., really, who does like needles? Having a needle poked into your vein isn’t exactly a fun thing, but I’m the biggest wimp ever and I can handle it. It also helps to not look at it. Have a friend stand by your side and tell you a particularly interesting bit of gossip when the needle is going in.

The second excuse is “I don’t want to get sick.” This can mean the excuse-giver is worried about having a reaction to donating, or that he/she thinks they will feel sick later on because of giving blood. Blood bank workers are trained to spot and deal with donors who get woozy. If you feel a little queasy, give the word and they’ll lay you back, prop your feet up and get you a strawful of Pepsi. It’s great!

As far as getting sick later on, as long as you follow the post-donation instructions of increasing your water and rest intake and avoiding exercise and alcohol, you will feel fine. In fact, you’ll feel great because you’ve saved a life.

The third, and most selfish, excuse is “I don’t have time to give blood.” Think of yourself lying in a hospital bed waiting for a transfusion and then give that excuse again. The donation process, including registration, donation and recuperation takes only one hour. Each one of us has at least one hour per day that we piddle away — an hour we could use to give blood.

What a lot of these excuses come down to is that we just don’t want to be uncomfortable for even a short amount of time. We don’t want to put ourselves out. But what is a few minutes of discomfort compared to saving a life? It would be so much easier to donate five bucks to the cause, wouldn’t it? But, it doesn’t work that way. Unlike many other things in life, you can’t buy blood.

Through working at the blood drives, I’ve seen people proudly display their gallon pin or pins. These people are the ultimate heroes because, not only do they give blood for points at blood drives, but they give blood as often as they can. I talked with a guy the other night who said his uncle has given four gallons of blood. That’s 32 pints of blood!

Often people do not feel motivated to give blood because they’ve never been close to anyone who has had to receive blood. But I guarantee you, someday someone you love will need blood — maybe two pints, maybe 63 like Lynda Pawlowski — and I just hope there are people out there who didn’t mind being uncomfortable for a few minutes in order to save that person’s life.

So, here’s your second invitation. Depending on when you read this, you may still have a few hours left to donate blood right here on campus. Until 3 p.m. (and maybe a little after) you can have the chance to give a pint of blood that has the potential of saving up to three lives! Forget your excuses, suck it up, and get to the Union. What are you waiting for?

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Erin Walter is a senior in journalism and mass communication from Urbandale.