Moving full circle from donor to patient to donor again
Nancy Hill of Dallas has been a lifesaving donor for more than five decades, with first-hand insight into the importance of blood donation.
She took the first step on her blood donation journey as a high school senior in 1971. That’s when her mother, a registered nurse and frequent blood donor, received a call from Wadley Blood Bank, which would later become Carter BloodCare.
“There was a critical need for A negative blood,” Nancy recalled. “Knowing that I had the same blood type, my mother asked me to go along with her and that was my first donation.”
Eight years after her first blood donation, Nancy found herself on the patient side of the process.
At that time, Nancy and her husband, Gary, lived in the small town of Crowley in southern Louisiana, 25 miles west of Lafayette.
“In 1979, while Gary was working offshore, I suffered a ruptured ectopic pregnancy with abdominal hemorrhage,” Nancy said. “An ambulance rushed me to the hospital and I was prepped for emergency surgery.
“Normally, blood was not kept at this 30-bed community hospital, but someone else’s surgery was scheduled for the next day, and the hospital had three units of type A negative whole blood on hand,” she said. “Surgery and transfusions saved my life.”
Her transfusion experience compelled Nancy to become a consistent blood donor with local blood banks in the family’s area.
“I decided to ‘pay if forward’ and donate blood whenever I could,” she said.
Her forward-thinking decision had special significance later.
“Eight years after my transfusions, Gary and our daughter were in a serious head-on collision,” Nancy said. “Our daughter, Leah, who is type A positive like her dad, received several units of blood. She recovered and now is an RN and blood donor herself.”
Nancy estimates she has donated well over five gallons of whole blood at various U.S. blood centers, including Carter BloodCare. She also steps up as a volunteer blood drive organizer.
“So, at age 71 and after 54 years of giving blood, I have come full circle to being a donor with Carter BloodCare,” she said.
“As a blood donor, a blood recipient, and the parent of a recipient, I share my story to encourage others to donate the life-giving gift of blood,” Nancy said. “I plan to continue my donor journey as long as I am able.”
Resources
Do you know all the blood types?
Local patients need you. Please donate this week at your Carter BloodCare mobile blood drive or donor center. When you do, you’ll get a Donor Appreciation Gift.
And there’s another way you can help: If you’ve ever received a transfusion, your patient experience can motivate others to donate blood to save lives. Like Nancy, all you have to do is simply Tell Us Your Story.