SAINT-ALEXIS-DES-MONTS. If more and more people are turning to food banks to get enough to eat, it is rather towards blood banks that Daniel Grenier turns to get his blood vessels back afloat.
The sales director of Pourvoirie du Lac Blanc, in Saint-Alexis-des-Monts, was recently the spokesperson for a large blood drive in Trois-Rivières. If he quickly acquiesced to Héma-Québec‘s request, he was in fact only returning the favor in his own opinion. “Personally, I estimate that I have had around a thousand blood transfusions in my life,” he emphasizes.
Daniel Grenier has in fact suffered from Rendu-Osler-Weber disease since a very young age, a hereditary disorder which usually results in repeated nosebleeds. “These are arteriovenous malformations. My maternal grandfather had this and he passed it on to four of his daughters, namely my aunts. I have it, as do my brother and his two daughters, and we have several cousins who live with it. I am conservative, but just in our family, we must have had between 5,000 and 6,000 blood transfusions because of this,” he continues.
The analogy with food banks and blood banks comes from Daniel Grenier himself. “When food counters lack food, it’s the people in need who suffer. It’s the same with blood drives, if people give less, there are people who will run out. Personally, it has happened four or five times in my life where there was not enough blood for my needs. At that time, you recover on your own, but I find that worrying sometimes,” notes the one who has the misfortune, on top of his illness, to have type O negative blood, the rarest blood groups (7% of the population).
In his extreme episodes, Daniel Grenier could fill five to six salad bowls with blood-soaked tissues before the bleeding stopped. “At that time, you lose so much blood that you have a vagal shock, that is to say, you lose blood. The only beauty of it is that it stops bleeding automatically,” continues the sales director of Pourvoirie du Lac Blanc.
A few years ago, Daniel Grenier was training in a gym when nosebleeds started. “I was in the locker room and three guys came up to me to ask how I was going. They told me that a long time ago in La Tuque, there was a man who had nosebleeds like me and that when it happened, they were called to go and donate their blood directly to the factory where he worked or at home when he was at home. I asked: “Was your guy’s name Paul Lavoie because he’s my grandfather? » And when I saw the guys’ eyes, I knew it was him. I gave them a big hug and thanked them because at that time, Héma-Québec did not exist. »
Over the years and episodes of hemorrhage, Daniel Grenier has developed tricks. “From the age of 30 to 50, I needed 40 to 50 transfusions per year. But for the last 6 or 7 years, I’ve only needed about twenty. When it happens now, I lie on my side towards the heart, it helps to clot the blood. »
This is the first time that Daniel Grenier has been involved in promoting blood donation. “My mother and my aunts were involved in blood drives in La Tuque. Through my testimony, I want to make people aware that it is important to donate blood. “It’s the first time I’ve done it, but it definitely won’t be the last,” he promises.
