'Just a small pinch to save a life'
Over the last 33 years, Peter Miller of Elburn has given up at least eight gallons of his blood to help other people.
That's pretty good for a guy who, like many of us, can't stand needles.
But three or four times a year, he rolls up a sleeve, and looks away as a Heartland Blood Center employee inserts one to collect some of his blood.
“It's just a small pinch to save a life ... how can you go wrong with something like that?” Miller said.
It all began when Miller took a job in 1981 as an air traffic controller at the FAA Chicago Center on Indian Trail Road, just west of Highland Avenue in Aurora.
He noticed that, despite working six-day weeks, some of his co-workers set aside time to go donate at the Heartland Blood Center next door on Highland.
“‘That's downright admirable,'” Miller thought, and a way to give back to the public that was paying his salary. So he joined them.
Testing revealed that his blood was especially suitable for transfusing to premature infants because it was free of antibodies to cytomegalovirus (CMV). CMV is a flu-like virus. The immune systems of premature or low-birth-weight babies is not as strong as older children and adults, making them more susceptible to the disease, and so it is preferable to give them blood from people who have never been exposed to the disease.
Miller, 61, has remained CMV-negative since.
He donated at the Aurora center until he retired. Now, he gives at the Geneva center, 2000 Route 38.
“I'll keep doing it until God says I can't breathe any more,” Miller said.
He has been known to show up in a Father Christmas costume to donate — and last year, after giving, he spontaneously offered to ring the bell for a Salvation Army kettle next-door in front of a Walgreens.
Miller urges everyone to consider donating blood, “just to be thankful for all the things you have gotten in life, to give something back.” He notes that for people unable to give money to charities, donating is free.
“You can't beat the feeling,” he said.
• Do you know a person to be thankful for? Email the details to sklovstad@dailyherald.com.