Joni

Donor, Recipient

Joni has been a supporter and active participant in blood donation and collection since before her own daughter had open-heart surgery and required two units of blood to survive. In all, Suzanne underwent three open-heart surgeries, each necessitating transfusions.

Suzanne is now 16. She had her first surgery when she was only 10 weeks old to correct a disorder called Truncus Arteriosus. She had been born with three heart valves instead of the normal four. Joni was already coordinating blood drives at her workplace, but Suzanne’s surgery brought the importance of donating blood home to her.

It came even closer on April 21, 2007. On that spring day, Joni was on her motorcycle when a driver pulled out in front of her. She went down, fracturing a bone under her knee and another under her eye, breaking three ribs and damaging a kidney so badly that it had to be removed.

Treatment of Joni’s injuries required a total blood transfusion – six units immediately and two more units the next night. Like her daughter, she would not have survived without blood donated by people she would never meet.

“I’d been using Suzanne’s story for years to get people to give blood,” Joni says. “Now I have another story. Giving blood is giving a great gift, a life-saving gift. Everyone who can should do it.

Please share your experience as a blood donor or transfusion recipient.