Blood will have blood...

"I am in blood stepped so far, that should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er"*

"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed"**

Blood.

It's a interesting substance. Made up of clotting factors, platelets, white cells, antibodies and the ever famous red blood cell.

It's something I deal with every day and yet it's something pretty amazing.

On Good Friday I was working the geri's ward and happened to be in a rush and forgot to grab some allergy free latex gloves to perform a cannulation. Now if I was actually any good at cannulating this wouldn't have been a problem but cos I couldn't cannulate the aorta if it was opened up for me on the OT, I somehow managed to get some old lady's blood all over my hands.

I really doubt a 87yr old granny was at high risk of any blood borne viruses and I had no open wounds, so I declined starting antiviral therapy. But I walked out with my hands covered in blood.

It's a rare sight in medicine.

Normally we wear gloves to protect ourselves both physically and emotionally from the procedure we are performing. We seperate ourselves from the fact that we are spilling poeple's lifeblood all day long in small doses.

Blood is something personal. It's what keeps you alive and gives you your energy/life. And to take someone's blood is to take their life from them.

So I sat there on Good Friday, looking at my blood stained hands and remembering the significance of what I was doing.

Because 2000 years previously another person sat bleeding on that Good Friday. A man whose blood I also carried on my hands (in responsibility).

This man however wasn't getting a cannula put in, he had a spear put in. Roughly into his spleen and by that time his blood had coagulated into fluid and jelly-like substance. This man's blood was taken with consent, not for his own treatment; but for the treatment of my disease.

A disease that was much worse than anything I would face on that Friday shift. In fact, the one true disease that would be the cause of all other 'diseases' in the world. A pathology called sin.

Whilst Good Friday 2006 was spent by me trying to stop people from dying, Good Friday 33 was spent by Jesus actually breaking the power of death itself. Kinda makes my efforts look kinda futile.

You see blood is more than just haemoglobin. It's a symbol of our life itself. The blodo bank knows this when they ask for you to "give the gift of life". Blood is synonymous with life.

And one man's blood brought new life to the world. Not the kind of angstridden life we all trudge thru on this world... but real life... a restored relationship with the one who made life in the first place.

All the medicine in the world can't stop you from dying. It seems to have a 100% strike rate. But one man was seen to have come back after being clinically dead for 3 days... and if he says he knows the secret to beating death... well I reckon it's worth listening to him.

* What I can remember from Macbeth
** Genesis 9:6