The need for blood donors is so important -- just ask Maddie
The big white signs are back.
I’m talking, of course, about the big Webster Community Blood Drive signs which are popping up all over town, advertising not only the dates of next week's drive, but spotlighting some of the sponsors who help support it.
During next week’s two-day drive, organizers hope at least 250 people will take time to donate. It’s an ambitious goal, but one they believe is easily achievable. The trick is getting people to realize what their one pint of blood, and one hour of their time, could really accomplish.
It’s not just that every two seconds, a patient in the U.S. receives a blood or platelet transfusion. It’s not just that 250 units of blood collected during the two-day drive could save up to 750 lives.
It’s easier to focus on what a single blood donation can do -- and has done -- in our community, for one person, for one Webster neighbor.
Maddie Donowski is 16 years old, a junior at Webster Thomas High School. Last summer she contracted mononucleosis, and for months afterwards continued to suffer from nausea, stomach pain and chest pains totally unrelated to the mono. The doctors diagnosed everything from lactose intolerance to a gallbladder attack to a stress disorder.
It wasn’t until the end of October that the doctors finally got it right.
It was Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, which by then had spread through her chest and neck. Treatment began almost immediately, 12 weeks of chemotherapy followed by three weeks of radiation.
Things were going well and the prognosis was looking good. But then, on the night before New Year’s Eve 2013, things got scary. Maddie and her family were preparing to go to a friend’s house for a party, but she didn’t feel well. Her home nurse checked her blood, found her red cell count was dangerously low, and immediately sent her to the hospital.
That night, Maddie received a transfusion of blood, donated by someone who gave up one hour of his or her day to help save a life.
Or sometimes it’s simply a matter of helping someone through their ordeal.
“In some cases, blood transfusions don’t determine life or death,” Maddie said, “rather, happiness or misery. Kids who already have to suffer through chemo deserve to feel their best, and blood transfusions make that possible.”
“Being at the clinic almost every day some weeks, I saw a lot of little kids going through treatment,” she added. “When they were getting blood, I could see their whole demeanor change in just six hours from a sick, afraid cancer patient to a normal lively kid who just happens to have cancer.”
There are so many more Maddies out there in our community, so many of our neighbors who are fighting diseases right now and who rely on blood transfusions.
That’s why the Red Cross needs donors every single day. Because the people who benefit aren’t just faceless strangers -- they’re our neighbors and friends.
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email me at missyblog@gmail.com