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Sunday, July 6, 2025

How strangers saved my daughter’s life

by

HealthPlus Contributor
1041 days ago
20220830

Moth­er of a child whose life de­pends on Vol­un­tary Blood Do­na­tion

It is a med­ical fact that blood is life. How­ev­er, for many of us, our re­la­tion­ship with blood brings us to our knees in prayer, in faith that this source of life is avail­able at a mo­ment’s no­tice.

My love/hate re­la­tion­ship with blood be­gan when my daugh­ter was di­ag­nosed with Sick­le Cell Dis­ease (SCD) when she was just a ba­by. At that mo­ment, the se­cret hid­den in her par­ent’s blood be­came the nar­ra­tive of her life; a blood dis­or­der she in­her­it­ed us.

Fast for­ward to when she was just 4 years old, and a sim­ple tooth in­fec­tion ne­ces­si­tat­ed an emer­gency ex­change blood trans­fu­sion. The irony of life is that the very thing that is wrong in her body is what she need­ed to save her. There be­gan my six-year jour­ney of month­ly blood trans­fu­sions that see-sawed be­tween top-up trans­fu­sions and ex­change trans­fu­sions.

Every month as the date for the sched­uled trans­fu­sion drew clos­er, my anx­i­ety about the avail­abil­i­ty of the blood, blood that would match her type, and the qual­i­ty of the blood would end­less­ly tor­ment me.

There were mo­ments when we could not re­ceive the amount she re­quired, but enough to get her by. I nev­er thought I could be so grate­ful for some­thing from strangers, I nev­er knew or met, that we eas­i­ly take for grant­ed.

Nev­er take this gift for grant­ed

The need for blood bond­ed the par­ents and the chil­dren who re­quired this source of life, as month­ly and fort­night­ly trans­fu­sion meets, meant that you knew who need­ed blood for Tha­lassemia or Sick­le Cell Dis­ease. For us, blood is the most pre­cious com­mod­i­ty on earth, some­thing that we can nev­er take for grant­ed.

My daugh­ter is now 12 years old; she has had over 72 trans­fu­sions in her life. She has en­dured as many nee­dle punc­tures as pos­si­ble to re­ceive blood, a process that would make many adults, in­clud­ing my­self, light­head­ed from the sight of it. But, if not for the blood do­na­tions of per­sons who con­tin­u­al­ly give their blood so will­ing­ly and a sys­tem that en­sures strin­gent test­ing to en­sure that the blood, she re­ceives is healthy and enough for her, hon­est­ly, I don’t know where we both would be. As a par­ent of a child whose life de­pends on blood re­ceiv­ing blood do­nat­ed by strangers, they have be­come part our fam­i­ly, I am eter­nal­ly grate­ful.

Why be­come a vol­un­tary donor?

Do­nat­ing blood has sig­nif­i­cant health ben­e­fits for the donor, more so it does so much more for those who de­pend on these do­na­tions to live. Let us not wait for on­ly when a fam­i­ly mem­ber or friend in need of blood to re­alise the im­por­tance of be­com­ing a donor. This is the most self­less and pa­tri­ot­ic act some­one can do. Giv­ing blood is not just for the ones you know; your blood can save the lives of a na­tion, and it is the great­est lega­cy you can leave.

I En­cour­age every­one to­day - Be­come a true vol­un­tary donor!


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