In-my-face life has been stomping all over me for some months – some good, some bad, some in between. And the reality of writing a free blog is that sometimes, even when you least want to, things just sometimes have to give. It’s the nature of taking care of yourself.
Of course, not writing it down here doesn’t mean the thoughts – both analytical and angry – go away. FAR FROM IT. I’ve missed y’all like made and I’ve been occupied by two primary thoughts during my downtime here.
Weight
A formula that measures body fat — called Body Mass Index (BMI) — is used to evaluate weight when determining donor suitability. You may not be allowed to register if your BMI (both underweight and overweight) would present a risk to your safety. See Donor Weight Guidelines for more information regarding upper weight criteria. While we do not have a guideline table listing minimum weight criteria, volunteers who are extremely underweight for their height would need to be carefully evaluated.
For a person who is 5’4”, the maximum allowable weight to be a bone marrow donor is 233 pounds. The official reason given is donor safety. And, you know, I can respect that they want bone marrow donors to be safe, not to suffer for the sake of their donation. But I also can’t find any reason WHY donating bone marrow is more dangerous for fatter people.
And since there IS an upper-limit chart and there is not a lower-limit chart…. It just seems a bit not okay.
Leukemia sucks. I would still like to point out that bone marrow registries and donations do a world of good even while I question the whole “If your BMI is greater than” restrictions.
2. The systemic fat hate in our culture works, in part, through depersonalizing “the obesity issue” – it pathologizes bodies and erased the identity of those people. That’s why we all cringe at the headless fatties so common on tv and in print. The most effective thing I’ve found to combat that is making it personal.
Because it IS personal. This is my body. This is your body. These are the bodies we live in, move in, experience our world in. It cannot be an impersonal fight.
Which, of course, is always implied but I think explicitly stating it has a certain power.
As such, I want to frame things here a bit more personally. I mean, obvs, I have done a lot of that anyway. *grin* But I want all of us to think about this from that very specific viewpoint – the war on obesity is a war on each of us as individuals.
3. Okay, I liked, one more item: Avenue, I damn well love that you have interesting fishnet tights but there is no reason the crotch should rip out on every single pair upon first wearing. Can we deal with that, please? Thank you.
10 Comments
It’s been a good while since I worked for a department that handled bone marrow donations, but I do remember some problems occuring for larger donors. There’s a limit to the length of the needles used for bone marrow donations, for instance, and if a donor has a lot of fat over his or her hips, it can be very difficult to get a sample. At the very least it can be more painful, and, in some cases, the person taking the sample might not be able to punch the core as accurately and there might be more bleeding. Could this be solved by making more than one size of needle? Certainly. Will it happen any time soon? Beats me. Can a really skillful nurse or technician get around the problem? To a certain degree, if I recall, but it wasn’t easy.
There were also problems for some really large donors and large patients as well who needed to get certain diagnostic tests such as MRIs and who couldn’t fit even onto open MRI tables. I’m not talking about people who way 250 pounds, but 300 pounds, for instance. This is not a safety problem, but a limitation of diagnostic equipment.
I do remember very thin people being turned away as well, honestly.
I would still urge people to be tested who are willing to go through with transplants, which are NOT, by the way, the bed of roses that transplant web sites make them resemble. Being a donor can eat up a great big chunk of your life, from many hours of pre-testing to the time of the actual donation, and the medications you need to take while preparing for the transplant may be hard on your system. So go into it with your eyes open!
(I apologize if this is off-topic, though it is an example of cultural fat hate.) I subscribe to “A.Word.A.Day” emails because I love words, obviously, and I really enjoy those emails. There’s a “thought of the day” at the end,though, which I sometimes read and sometimes don’t. Today it was:
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Obesity is a mental state, a disease brought on by boredom and disappointment. -Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
And it seriously feels like getting punched in the face by someone I thought was a friend. I want say something about it, rather than just unsubscribe–any suggestions?
(SO SO SO HAPPY YOU’RE BACK!)
I had no idea there was a maximum allowable weight to be a bone-marrow donor. I would love to hear an in-depth explanation of their reasoning, especially since, as you pointed out, they don’t have a minimum weight requirement.
Smells fishy to me. And kind of sad too.
I worked previously in a cancer hospital with lots of people who were dying of leukemia. The idea that good bone marrow might’ve been turned away on the basis of someone’s fatness really bothers me.
I suspect that the bone marrow weight limit is due to difficulties in needle placement when there’s back fat involved. Because all people over X weight have too much back fat, and people aren’t built differently at all.
I asked them about the guidelines. The issue is the possible need for general anesthesia during the donation process. While general anesthesia is a greater risk for a healthy “obese” person compared to a healthy “normal” weight person, the donation process does not always require it, and I sent a really nasty email about their not respecting my ability to make an informed decision about my own health risks, and about what risks I was willing to take. I got a generic form letter back.
Good to see you back! Was starting to get a little worried about the lack of signal from this way but I do get how life can get all in-the-way at times. Hope everything is headed in good / better directions for ya.
I’m of the opinion that institutionalized fat hate depends on the medicalization of fat. This medicalization drives the, innumerable studies done to find what new and different terrifying malady is ’caused’ by fat (A recent study proposes that fat causes 100K kinds of cancer. So why aren’t we all dead?). It’s the path of least resistance for the ‘othering’ effect we all know and love so well, and it’s pass that every concern troll can use to justify their condescending ‘advice’.
All that to say; yeah. I agree, the only real defense we can currently present against this really, is to let people know when they are talking about the nebulous ‘Obesity Crisis’, that they are talking about US. Look them right in the eye and let them tell you, ’something has to be done about YOU (Not it)’. Lets see how many of them can really do it and remain comfortable.
When I registered I lied about my weight. I figured that they might be willing to reject me as a donor who hasn’t been matched yet, but the odds that they’d reject me if they found out about my weight after I were matched are pretty slim. (Ha! “Slim!”) After a match is made I’ll bet they’ll put in the effort to extract that marrow through my fat back.
There’s an upper and lower weight limit on blood donors (at least in Australia) but not a BMI limit. The lower weight limit is because of blood volume. Before I found out I couldn’t donate for other reasons, I asked them about the upper weight limit and it turned out that it was because their lifting equipment was not rated for people about 136kg (except for in-hospital donation centres). I asked them if this would change in the future, and they said that they always asked for stronger lifting equipment, but they hadn’t got it yet!
I have no issues with them placing a weight restriction on marrow donors. Strike that, I have a problem with it, but my problem with this particular instance of it is this: BMI is not a scientific measure of body fat.
never has been
never will be
If they want to look at body fat percentage, then dunk someone in a tank of water, or take 15 measurements and do some math, or take a small electrical impulse and send it through the body, time it, do some math, and you have an accurate, or at least far more accurate, tell of body fat percentage than the BMI which only looks at hight and weight!!
I actually like that Avenue’s fishnets and lace tights decrotch so readily… it makes them *much* easier to turn into fishnet/lace shirts.