Morehead Woman Knows Importance of Available Blood
July 13, 2023
With all that Pat Needham has been through – surviving a breast cancer diagnosis in 1998, living with chronic lymphocytic leukemia for the last seven years and now battling a gastrointestinal stromal tumor that requires brutal chemotherapy treatments – the last thing she should have to worry about is whether there is enough blood available to recoup the blood loss from the tumor in her digestive system.
And yet, in July 2022, after three years of a consistent blood shortage due to the COVID-19 pandemic, her oncologist warned her she might not receive the two units of blood she so desperately needed.
“It’s very disconcerting when you need blood and your oncologist says, ‘I’m not sure we have it to give to you,’” Pat recalled.
Kentucky Blood Center and its donors came through for Pat and got her the blood she required, but the sobering reality was enough to open the eyes of a woman who has faced more than her fair share of battles: Donor turnout has never returned to the pre-pandemic normal while the need is as high as it’s ever been.
“I don’t think I was fully aware there was a blood shortage,” said Pat, who donated regularly before her health issues began in 1998. “You just don’t think that when you need it that, ‘Hey, I may not be able to get this.’ Even though I was aware people needed to donate blood, I don’t think I was aware that it was going to possibly affect my treatment, whether I could get blood or not.”
From January through July of 2022, Pat needed 14 units of blood to treat a consistent bleed. In that first month, before it was discovered she had GIST, she needed seven units in one week after her hemoglobin dropped to 5.7, a life-threatening level. A healthy hemoglobin for a woman is between 12 and 16.
“Basically (the blood transfusions) saved my life,” said Pat, a longtime resident of Morehead, Kentucky. “Had I not been able to get that blood, I wouldn’t have made it.”
