Jay Fred Duckett, the longtime Rice athletic announcer, alumni, & fan, has been hospitalized with acute leukemia and is in need of platelets & blood. Below is an email I received regarding setting up a schedule of directed donations of blood and especially platelets for Jay Fred. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.


Hello all. I just spoke to Fred and, among other things, he said that
he is need of platelets and blood. For those not familiar with
platelets, they are necessary for blood to clot, they are often needed by leukemia patients on a daily basis and they have a very short shelf life (something like 48 hours). The process takes about two (2) hours and there are many things that are much more enjoyable than giving platelets, but nothing that is as important as giving for Fred. I called the Methodist Hospital Blood Center @ 713.441.3415 and made an appointment to give both platelets & blood on Wednesday of this week. As I said, platelets have a short shelf life, and we need to get people lined up to give platelets on a daily basis for as long as necessary (could be weeks depending on his treatment).

For this to be effective, there needs to be a schedule of donors. I am scheduled for Wednesday -- we now need Tues (tomorrow) if possible, Thurs and Friday of this week and Mon-Friday next week, etc, etc. Email me and I'll put you on the schedule on a first come, first served basis. As soon as I confirms your date, call the Methodist Blood Center @ 713.441.3415 and make your appointment -- be sure to tell them you are donating specifically for Fred. Then call Fred and tell him what you are doing because he will have to provide some kind of written authorization since the platelets are specifically for him. I have done this before for patients at MDACC and it works, but we need commitments and help to get this coordinated and on track. It will then pretty much run on its own for as long as necessary. Please do your part to help Fred and volunteer now.

Fred's blood type is A+, but platelets do not have to match based on blood type (ie, platelets from any blood type will do for Fred). Blood can be given something like every 8-10 weeks, but platelets can be given much more often like weekly. On Wednesday, I will give my platelets and O- blood. I will not be able to give blood again for 8-10 weeks, but I will be able to give platelets again in a few days (next week for sure). Because of the short shelf life of platelets, those that I give on Wed will have to be used on Thurs or Friday. That is the reason why a daily schedule of platelet donors is so critically important.

Please use my email address shown below to schedule your donation date(s)

Jack C. Faubion
713.802.4208
faubionjc@veci.com

If anyone would like to contact Jay Fred, he is at the Methodist Hospital located in the Houston Medical Center.

6565 Fannin Street
Houston, TX 77030
Room 832
(713) 790-3311 (General Number)

His direct phone number to his room is 713-394-6332

And he can be emailed using the following link

https://www.methodisthealth.com/cgi-bin/...?action=EN
&pageTypeId=536890449&formOID=1610674635

I gave blood last week. Does anyone know if I can give platelets this week?

J Fred is the greatest!

I'm giving blood this week, but I'm not sure if I can do much good here in Dallas.

Here's to a speedy recovery, and to all of you who help out, way to go!

Hambone10 Wrote:I gave blood last week. Does anyone know if I can give platelets this week?

According to Jack you can give platelets weekly.

jh Wrote:

Hambone10 Wrote:I gave blood last week. Does anyone know if I can give platelets this week?

According to Jack you can give platelets weekly.

I give whole blood every 2 months. I think Hambone's question is whether, after giving whole blood last week, he needs to wait 8 weeks BEFORE giving platelets. I don't know the answer to that either, as I've never given platelets.

Exactly right, Rick. I'll ask Methodist

IF anyone cares... Apparently if you donate blood, you have to wait 8 weeks before doing ANY other blood product. After 8 weeks, you can donate platelets every 48 hours, but not more than twice a week, or 24 x /year

Continued Prayers for JFD

Carter Blood Care told me (verbally) that I can't make any kind of donation until my 112 day waiting perdio is up, and similarly, if you've donated whole blood, you have to wait 8 weeks before any kind of donation. I'd still recommend contacting Methodist because they may have different guidelines. I'm not sure how they'd get blood from Dallas down to Houston or if they'd work on a credit system, but I think in my case, the point is mute.

Carter Blood Care FAW Wrote:How often can I donate? - Top -

Giving whole blood requires a waiting period of 56 days between donations. If you donate plasma (your red cells are returned to you), you may donate every 28 days. If you donate platelets (your red cells and most of your plasma is returned to you), you may donate every 3 days with a maximum of 2 times per week and 24 times per year.

If you have type A blood you would make a great platelet donor! It takes a little more time, but helps people who are quite ill.

Remember, type AB blood makes good plasma and platelet donors and type O, A and B blood make good red cell donors.

If you donate double red cells (most of your plasma is returned to you), you must wait 112 days before your next donation. Double red cell donors must meet certain weight, height, and hemoglobin requirements.

I45owl Wrote:I'm not sure how they'd get blood from Dallas down to Houston or if they'd work on a credit system, but I think in my case, the point is mute.

I don't think it really matters that you're in a different city. It isn't so much a matter of getting your platelets to him, but rather getting him credit for having platelet donors in the system.

I had leukemia 3 years ago (so unfortunately the blood banks don't want my blood any more) and I underwent several platelet transfusions along the way. In most circumstances I didn't get platelets from the people who specifically donated for me. While it's true that having the "wrong" blood type doesn't necessarily make you incompatible for platelets, there was still some kind of compatibility testing going on.

Where the donors seemed to make a difference is in the (for lack of a better word) quality of transfusion you get. If the blood bank sees lots of people donating in your name, it seems you're more likely to get a single unit of platelets donated by one person. If not, you might get a unit that consists of several smaller quantities of platelets that were extracted from whole blood donations from several different donors. As I understood it, that may reduce the effectiveness of the transfusion a little, and it certainly multiplies the possibility for complications down the road arising from diseases in the donors' blood samples, etc. This whole thing was a little murky to me, so I might be a little off on the specifics, but one of my half-dozen transfusions was of the multiple-donor variety. And although many people donated on my behalf, there was only one case where the platelets I received actually came from one of my donors.

Anyhow, the short story is it certainly doesn't hurt to donate in Jay Fred's name in another city. If you're thinking about it, please do it. It's unfortunate when people (like me) don't appreciate how important donating blood products is until after they can't give it any more.

erice Wrote:

I45owl Wrote:I'm not sure how they'd get blood from Dallas down to Houston or if they'd work on a credit system, but I think in my case, the point is mute.

I don't think it really matters that you're in a different city. It isn't so much a matter of getting your platelets to him, but rather getting him credit for having platelet donors in the system.

I had leukemia 3 years ago (so unfortunately the blood banks don't want my blood any more) and I underwent several platelet transfusions along the way. In most circumstances I didn't get platelets from the people who specifically donated for me. While it's true that having the "wrong" blood type doesn't necessarily make you incompatible for platelets, there was still some kind of compatibility testing going on.

Where the donors seemed to make a difference is in the (for lack of a better word) quality of transfusion you get. If the blood bank sees lots of people donating in your name, it seems you're more likely to get a single unit of platelets donated by one person. If not, you might get a unit that consists of several smaller quantities of platelets that were extracted from whole blood donations from several different donors. As I understood it, that may reduce the effectiveness of the transfusion a little, and it certainly multiplies the possibility for complications down the road arising from diseases in the donors' blood samples, etc. This whole thing was a little murky to me, so I might be a little off on the specifics, but one of my half-dozen transfusions was of the multiple-donor variety. And although many people donated on my behalf, there was only one case where the platelets I received actually came from one of my donors.

Anyhow, the short story is it certainly doesn't hurt to donate in Jay Fred's name in another city. If you're thinking about it, please do it. It's unfortunate when people (like me) don't appreciate how important donating blood products is until after they can't give it any more.

You need to ask a lot of questions if you're not donating directly through Methodist. I give through the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center (almost to my 8-gallon coffee mug), and they tell me that certain hospitals only work through their own collection system. Now those hospitals may work in a system with some Dallas hospital, but evidently if you give through GCRBC, it's not credited at all hospitals.

Ask, and ask again, and to be sure, call Methodist (it's either M.D. Anderson or Methodist who is peculiarly picky about the whole thing).

Below is additional information regarding the particular policies of The Methodist Hospital along with contact infomation. It looks like Methodist is the picky one so out of town donations will be hard to pull off.


After giving platelets yesterday, I now have a better understanding of the process at The Methodist Hospital (TMH). Quite honestly, it is not as smooth an operation as I had expected, but the objective here is to get Fred what he needs and we have to do this through their system. At this time, Fred needs platelets and not whole blood. Generally, TMH will accept donations of platelets on a four week interval (8 weeks for whole blood) unless it is "medically necessary". Fred qualifies for the medically necessary exception and platelets can be given for him a maximum of twice in a seven day period. TMH has no replacement or credit program, and I donated under its "Directed Donor Program" which requires that Fred or a family member sign an authorization form accepting the donation. I arrived at TMH about 2:30 and left some time after 5:00 because the screening, preparation, authorization and donation processes all take time. I saw Fred both before and after, and he was very grateful. I assure you that he would like to see you. I had offered to coordinate this effort with help from Jon, but the process is such that I do not believe it will work from the outside.
Instead, the best thing to do is to call TMH Blood Center @ 713.441.3415 and ask for Jack who is the supervisor and is familiar with this situation. He can check Fred's status as to what he needs when (this week he needs platelets now), but that could change because Fred still has more chemo coming up. I regret that I am punting on this, but I am convinced it cannot be coordinated by an outsider because of TMH's requirements, the HIPPA patient confidentiality law, etc. etc. But this is Jack's job and he can do this far more effectively than someone on the outside.

Following are answers to several of the questions that I have received by telephone or email:

* The most frequently asked question concerned out-of-town donations.
It can be done, but at a steep price. TMH has no blood replacement
or donation credit program, and therefore, platelets would have to be shipped from that location to the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center very quickly because of their short shelf life and then shipped from the GCRBC to TMH. The cost would depend on many factors such as distance, availability, timing, etc, but it would be very expensive. Jack said this needs to be done locally if at all possible, and we need for the Houston guys & gals to get in line to give before we go the other direction.

* Hepatitis disqualifies a potential donor
* Residing in the UK for more than 3 months from 1980-1996 disqualifies a potential donor
* Cancer survivors are generally not permitted to donate

If you have other questions, please call TMH Blood Center directly @ 713.441.3415, and when you call, you might as well talk to Jack and make an appointment if you are qualified and Fred has a need. Its hours of 8:30--5:30 Monday to Friday are not very convenient for us working types, but that is what time off is for. Thanks for your help with this effor

I just heard some bad news from the hospital. J. Fred passed away at about 7:00 pm tonite. I'm sure we'll hear an update about arrangements sometime tomorrow.