Labour pains ran all over her anatomy
Lowering from her upper
Down her lower
…abdomen
Announcing her place among fertile women
Her labour noise was heard
Travelling along the lobby
Registering her voice
Around the ward of maternity
Calling her nurse
To attend to a delivery
So her nurse hurried to calm her noise
Calming her
Not to make labour pains and noise
…worse
The vital stats taken
Stated a healthy status
But her blood count
Could not be accounted for
So her nurse made a dash
To consult her superior
When she returned
She had an order from her superior
To seek another’s blood to transfuse
Before birthing could be granted a berthing
However, a quick check at the blood bank
Got her confused
For there was no ready blood
To use to transfuse
Her husband was the first
To offer blood to donate
But hardly did his blood grouping
Prove to match
Many others lined up to offer a pint
Hardly could any offer up a quart
…of quality blood
To donate
So a search team was sent to town
For that rare blood grouping
To locate
One they brought from town
Was a real gentleman of no mean repute
A fact no one would dispute
No infectious disease could anyone impute
…to his blood
No debilitating defect
Could the routine test detect
…in his blood
Husband and wife and family
Had reason to shower
Tons upon tons of flowers
Upon the generous donor
Therefore a bouncy baby was added to the number
Many years passed
Many years passed for symptoms to tell their own story
For mother and child
For it was a stern warning
Sent down each morning
Which gave them a serious cause for worrying
…certainly
Each morning was a wake up call
To welcome a chain of malaise
A back pain or a neck pain
A headache or a stomachache
From a bout of malaria
To a round of nausea
From a pound of diarrhoea
To a mound of pneumonia
Each symptom served a reminder
To visit a laboratory
For a test through the body
Each body test
Recommended an advanced test
Many tests crossed paths
For diagnosis to tell the real story
For prognosis to point to a medical history
A history filled with the story
Of a transfusion of a man’s blood
…of years ago
When a donor of repute
Dispensed blood full of impurities
…without knowing
When a routine test recommended blood full of infections
…without knowing
Rife but reliable rumours in town had it all
That the gentle donor
Dragged from town years ago
That the donor of no mean repute
Was now a patient wasting away
In a sickbay
Where his H. I. V. and AIDS status
Was now not in dispute
