Tristan: “If it weren’t for blood donations, I wouldn’t be here today”

The young entrepreneur Tristan Mathys found out first-hand how quickly someone can suddenly be in urgent need of another person’s blood.

Tristan woke up one night feeling absolutely terrible – he lost consciousness for a few moments and then vomited blood. An ambulance was called right away, and he was taken to hospital, where he received immediate medical assistance. In the hours that followed, he was given multiple blood transfusions: transfusions that saved the life of this brand-new father. The diagnosis: gastrointestinal perforation. The blood transfusions Tristan received saved his life, because a hole like that in the wall of the intestine is associated with severe internal bleeding and cannot be closed by surgery, but must heal on its own. He claimed with a laugh that he wasn’t actually afraid at the time, since he is never afraid.. 

More seriously, he added that you don’t have any room in your head for fear in a situation like that because your mind is full of other things. Due to physical exhaustion, though, a lot of his thinking was about sleep because he was so tired.

Asked what it felt like to receive a transfusion, Tristan gave a cheeky smile and answered:

“It is a great feeling: when there is so little blood in your body, you can feel the vital energy flowing through it, minute by minute.” Those feelings brought him almost to a kind of euphoria, he said.

As Tristan’s experience made quite clear to him, donating blood is very important. Even despite the need to jump through a few medical hoops before you can donate, such as having to fill in the extensive questionnaire. There are probably a lot of people who are unaware of how important and essential blood donations can be for those who receive them. Even if it is just during an operation, which can entail the loss of a lot of blood. Tristan himself has never donated blood because of his fear of needles and his concern that he might faint. But he knows that regular blood donation is of vital importance for the blood supply in Switzerland due to the relatively short storage life of blood products.

Tristan urges everyone to actively think about becoming a regular blood donor, to give to society and to themselves a good feeling through this good deed. Also, he’s heard that there is always a tasty snack waiting for you after you donate blood.