I always thought it was important to think about donating because I know someone who got a blood donation, and it helped save their life, but I never thought in a million years that I would ever be the recipient receiving a blood donation myself to save my life.
Quite unexpectedly I got extremely sick a few years ago with a bowel perforation, perforated appendix, small bowel obstruction, and I ended up having a right hemicolectomy, and it happened very quickly too. From being sick one moment to finding out I needed emergency surgery to take out my appendix and fix my bowel, to having a deadly infection leading to another surgery with the right side of my colon being taken out was scary. Two total surgeries!
This all happened within 5 days of each other, in an unknown city for me at the time, and it was even more scary to find out I had three blood transfusions in all of that to help keep me alive.
I admit I felt quite uneasy at first because I have OCD and I feared the worst from the donors because, until that moment, I had never been so sick in my entire life. I received three blood transfusions!
Now, three years later I'm fully recovered, and I still get infections from time to time, but I have a newfound appreciation for my life and towards blood donors because I owe my life to them.
I have donated a total of four times. Once before, I got sick and three times after, and it's something I don't plan on stopping and advocating for any time soon, because you never think it will happen to you until it does.
I plan to donate again soon by continuing to pay it forward, and I hope people can learn from my story, because even with everything that's happened, I'm still shocked, but I have no regrets about anything that has happened.
My life was saved, and while I still can, I hope to continue to save others.
