Giving Blood Makes an Impact

Blood donations are extremely essential for this country and all over the world. Giving one pint of whole blood saves three lives. I know it makes me feel great when I give blood knowing that I am potentially saving lives. People do not always realize the initial impact of giving blood. They give blood because other people are doing it and it’s just something that people do. Well, if they only knew the impact that it can have on the receiver and the donor, they would be more excited to give blood. I personally know that giving blood in any way whether it is whole blood, platelets, plasma, double red cells, and the special donations that include autologous and directed that donating has an effect.

My great grandmother, Margaret was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma for the first time at the age of 72 and after a long hard fight died from the cancer at the age of 87. She was a mom to three, grandmother to five, and a great grandmother to six officially but spent her whole life taking care of many more children. She was a foster parent before that term even existed. My family has always told us the stories of all the kids she took in for short amounts of time when they didn’t feel safe at home. Everyone in my family was so close to Grandma Margaret, she was the glue that held us all together; she had so much love for us as we did her. We would all pile in her tiny house for every holiday because she insisted the holidays were at her house and under her control. You never knew who was going to show up for the holidays because if you didn’t have anywhere to go I can guarantee she had invited them over. My cousins and I would take turns two or three at a time to spend the weekend with her. We would go to the zoo, work in her flowerbeds, do crafts, and if she was feeling really energetic we would go to Sportsman Lake for the day. It was really just chance they found the cancer. She was feeling tired so went to a routine doctor exam when they felt something in her lower abdomen. She was dealing with the cancer pretty well at the beginning of the diagnoses until she had to do chemo therapy. Apparently the things she had started to forget were not a coincidence; once the chemo started she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and with every treatment it progressed more.  The cancer went into remission but eventually came back even worse. My grandma lost all of her hair and just continually lost weight. I had never seen her look so sad and weak and it literally broke my heart. She soon became very anemic and needed blood on several different occasions throughout her treatment. Eventually my family made the decision to stop treatments because quality of life is different than quantity of life.  I find myself very fortunate to have had such a close loving relationship with my great grandmother for as long as I did. She lived her life as an example to all of us to treat everyone as if they were family and always be kind, generous, and giving.

Although my grandmother eventually died from cancer, the blood given to her throughout the process was a tremendous help. She would have never made it as far as she did without it. Everyone knew grandma Margaret was slowly dying but because someone gave blood, she was able to have a few more years of living than expected. Giving blood in any way can ultimately impact not only the life of the receiver but also the lives of their loved ones.