Jan. 2, 2026

DeWayne Hobbs doesn’t like to inconvenience those around him, so much so that when he fell ill in 2013 during a family vacation in Florida, it was hard to tell something was truly wrong.

DeWayne had little energy, no appetite and a high temperature, but he didn’t want to spoil vacation plans, so he chalked it up to a routine illness and told his family he’d stay behind when they wanted to go out.

“He just laid around,” said his wife, Deborah Hobbs. “DeWayne has a real high pain tolerance, so he would say, ‘You all just go on. I’m just going to rest.’ And every time we turned around, he was asleep.”

The family drove home to Kentucky at the end of the vacation with DeWayne in the backseat eating only bites of popsicles and cantaloupe, but Deborah and her kids deferred to DeWayne’s insistence that he would be fine. It wasn’t until the Hobbses were back in Lexington and DeWayne’s sister, Carol, a nurse at Baptist Health, came over to check on DeWayne that it became evident something more serious was happening.   

At Carol’s urging, they got DeWayne to Baptist Health Lexington, where it was revealed DeWayne’s hemoglobin – the protein found in red blood cells that transports oxygen throughout the body – was three. A normal hemoglobin for a male is between 13.5 to 16.5.

“The doctor that treated him said he’d never seen anybody live at those levels,” Deborah said.

DeWayne was diagnosed with autoimmune hemolytic anemia, a condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks and destroys its own red blood cells. At DeWayne’s levels, organ failure, stroke and even death can occur.

“DeWayne was in the emergency room going, ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe,’ and the people were like, ‘Oxygen won’t help him. He’s got to have blood,’ ” Deborah said.

The problem was DeWayne has a rare blood type, and blood wasn’t readily available on the hospital shelves to help him. Medical staff at Baptist Health immediately contacted Kentucky Blood Center, Baptist Health’s exclusive blood provider, and KBC went to work to find a match.

“Kentucky Blood Center somehow located the blood that was exactly what he needed,” Deborah said. “He got it, and he has made a full recovery.”

After 11 days in the intensive care unit, receiving blood transfusions and taking medication that he takes to this day, DeWayne eventually got back on his feet. The brush with death got Deborah and their youngest son, Lucas Hobbs, moving too, as they became regular blood donors.

“We give blood every time we can to pay it back and pay it forward,” Deborah said. “We remember how important it was for us. It saved my husband’s life.”

Blood donation is now a routine thing Deborah and Lucas do together whenever Lucas’ work schedule allows. They make their appointments back-to-back to help others in need while getting in some quality mother-son time.

“Mamas with adult children take any chance they can to be there with their children, especially a son,” Deborah said. “I treasure that time together with him even though it's just a few minutes.”

Those few minutes lying on a bed is what Deborah hopes others take away from their family’s experience at both ends of the blood bag. Donating blood is easy, pain free and rewarding, she says.

“I think people need to know that it really doesn’t hurt,” Deborah said. “I think people think, oh, you are sticking a needle in me and taking blood out of me, it’s got to hurt. It just doesn’t. They make you feel comfortable. Every person that I’ve interacted with has been so nice and pleasant.”

As a Christian, Deborah believes in the Bible’s Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

“I think most people want to help,” Deborah said. “We can’t always do everything, but this is one good thing you can do to make the world a little better.”