By KRISTI MAYFIELD

I have been a blood donor for more than 20 years and always enjoyed going to local blood drives housed in churches or schools or most often to my local blood bank. But other than visiting with my fellow donors and enjoying my cookies and juice post donation, I never really thought much about my blood or where it went, who received it and so forth. That all changed when my mama needed blood recently. Unfortunately, her hemoglobin levels were so low that we had to rush her to the ER to get some blood transfusions or she could have died.

I say this because until someone that I love dearly was directly impacted by this, I hadn’t really taken into account how much blood donations help people all over this nation and the world. I just kind of chalked it up to something you can do to help but never really connected it to anything personal.

Every two seconds in the United States, someone needs blood and/or platelets, per the American Red Cross. Science has not advanced to the point where they can manufacture blood or platelets; they still need to come from human donors. Many people with sickle cell disease, anemia and cancer will require many blood transfusions throughout their lives and blood transfusions are a crucial part of their recovery.

Some people don’t like needles and others might have medical, religious or personal reasons for not wanting or being able to donate, which I completely understand but I wanted to share this with you, the readers, as you or someone you love might be in critical need of blood sometime and you never know when that might be. This is not a plea or a push to get folks to donate blood, rather a personal story of how someone’s blood donation saved my mama’s life.

Since none of us can predict the future, you never know when your donation might be the key to helping someone so that they can have another day, another month, another year with their loved ones.

To find out more out about blood donation, please visit: https://www.redcrossblood.org/

Kristi Mayfield is a staff reporter for The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at kmayfield@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.