platelet , noun | Physiology : a small colourless disc-shaped cell fragment without a nucleus, found in large numbers in blood and involved in clotting. (Oxford Dictionary)

Because of a nasty genetic disease affecting her blood, my sister produces too many platelets and the platelets cause her blood to thicken too much, this in the long run obviously leads to thrombosis, thus higher chance of stroke, ischemia, arteriosclerosis etcetera. She is 35 and they say the worse is not supposed to happen anytime soon, especially if she responds well to the containment drugs. Although right now her body doesn't seem to tolerate very well the mini aspirin, which is the standard treatment in these cases.

I went at the polyclinic today to make a HLA typing test in the not desirable case my sister should go for a bone marrow transplant in the next future. HLA stays for Human Leukocitye Antigenes, aka the major indicator of genetic compatibility between individuals.
My sister is being cured in Rome, and since the HLA test is very expensive the hospital here in Milan had to wait for some papers from Rome to arrive to authorize the test, and although it's not urgent, getting to the hospital I feel better that the papers arrived before I left for the U.S.

Later I am in the room where they take your blood for analysis. The doctor attends my arm phial after phial outlining for me the purpose and utility of the HLA typing test. She says that in case of bone marrow transplant the test must give 90% of compatibility, which is pretty hard to get. "There's only so little probability for siblings to be that compatible, actually only 25% chance to get there, and almost zero chance for any two random individuals", she says.
And the thing is risky too, I mumble.
"It is risky for the recipient", she says, "whose blood cells have to be 'destroyed' before the operation".
She makes a quick gesture outward with her hands turned down, flickering her fingers to picture the event of destruction. She doesn't go into the details of such a destruction, or the risks involved with it. She's so adapted to underplay the little annoyances of being a donor to persuade people to donate that she seems to be forgetting for a second there that she's talking about my sister's blood cells to possibly be "destroyed".
But I am afraid to ask more. She has sweet oblique eyes, dark hair and large cheek bones like certain italians have, a motherly suffering air about her that makes her immediately sympathetic. She doesn't want me to think at the details now, it's too early, and she's right I guess.
There is also a risk for the donor, right? I say then, feeling a bit coward and provocateur as I say it, and she replies, quick: absolutely not, no! Persuasive.
Behind us another doctor is going about the papers, curly blond hair and a larger body, also very gentle wider eyes. I feel weird and self-conscious as I sit there saying the names of my parents out loud for the family tree form she's filling in. I wonder for a second when it was the last time I pronounced those names.
Finally they hand me all the leaflets about being a donor, and about the bone marrow transplant, give me my documents back and off I go, rolling down the sleeve.

Strangely enough, be it for logistical considerations, or possibly for reasons of persuasion, to get in and out of the room where they take your blood for analysis one has to pass across the hall where the regular blood donors lay down and give blood. So as I walk by, at least a dozen are laying down calmly looking up at the ceiling or sideways eying the doctors, nurses, patients and special occasional potential donors like me passing by for the analysis. A very pretty girl, all dressed in black, is laying down on one of the stretchers listening to her earpieces. For a second there I have the disturbing feeling she's not even donating, she's just laying there listening to music.

Outside is still another warm day. I go across the area of the polyclinic to via commenda to finally get me something to eat. A little later I am sitting in a bar eating focaccia and reading the leaflets about bone marrow transplant.
To my disappointment nowhere on the leaflet (which is not a leaflet at all, actually, but just some xeroed pages stapled together) is said anything about the risks for the recipient. The possibility of rejection is mentioned where it explains the HLA compatibility numbers, and that's it. Nothing is said of the "destruction" of the cells the lady was referring to.
There are few laconic lines about the risks that the donor runs, though. A "very little but not null" chance of a "breaking of the spleen" is mentioned,"possibility of cerebrum-vascular accidents" and "myocardial ischemia", following the "mobilization" and alteration of the blood that the donor must undergo in order to produce more stem cells before the transplant. Wow, just great.

Out of the bar. Is the sky turning gray? Is it a sunny day? Fuck who knows. It's warm. I walk down the street wondering all the things it is stupid to wonder, like what if we she really will need the transplant? And what if we are not compatible?
Me and my sister never got along very much. Nobody really got along with anybody in our so called family. We never mentioned or proved our reciprocal feelings for each other in any way during the years and so, one wonders if the feelings are really there. Well, I wonder all the time and I never got a clear answer.
And if I ever have to do something so important for my sister... at least I want to do it right, to come out right. To be useful.

I curse science and doctors. I curse medicine. I walk by the Berchet high school, the second hour bell just ringing, a girl's running in, the heavy knapsack slamming her back back. Maybe her second hour is science.
Fuck, science. There are the moments of truth when one sees clearly. I have one right there at the end of via commenda. I sort of always knew that science existed to overcome fear, and suddenly I see it so clearly. The reasons, the hope, the results, the hopeless too. So mixed up.