“Our world went from one place to another in the blink of an eye, said Elizabeth Billups.”
In October 2015, Elizabeth picked up her daughter from school after getting a call that Grace, age 9, had a fever. “It was a typical call, Gracie was sick, and I needed to come pick her up,” says Elizabeth, Gracie’s mom.
In a short amount of time, Gracie’s fever climbed even more and got to 104.7 degrees. So, the Billups family raced their daughter to the hospital, where they quickly learned Gracie had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Twelve hours later, Gracie was receiving the first of many blood transfusions.
“It was the worst news I could have ever imagined, I never thought I’d hear those words, never,” says Elizabeth.
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a fast progressing type of cancer that affects a person’s blood. It can occur when a bone marrow cell develops errors in its DNA. The errors tell the cell to continue growing and dividing when a healthy cell would normally stop dividing and eventually die. When this happens, blood cell production becomes abnormal.
Over the next two years, Gracie and her family spent time in the hospital.
During the course of her treatment, Gracie ended up needing many blood transfusions, weekly chemo, spinal taps, intramuscular shots, and more.
“Watching your daughter go through something like that, I will never forget how I felt just watching. It’s hard,” says Elizabeth. “But medicine is wonderful and can do so many wonderful things.”
The American Red Cross is the largest single supplier of blood and blood products in the United States, providing nearly 40% of the nation’s blood supply to hospitals. Through the Red Cross’s nationwide network of blood donors and blood banks, the Red Cross distributes blood across the entire country. In some places, we’re the leading provider. In others, we deliver blood upon request; for example, after a major disaster or when a patient has a rare blood type. The Red Cross provides blood to 11 hospitals in Colorado, including Denver Health, Swedish, and the University of Colorado Hospital.
“For Gracie, getting the blood transfusions made such a difference. Her little body would go through so much with the cancer and the treatment, and then she would get the blood transfusions, and you could literally see a difference,” says Elizabeth.
During the course of treatment, Gracie received 11 blood transfusions, spent 26 nights in the hospital and endured 850 days in a row of chemotherapy via pills, injections, infusions and spinal taps.
“I can’t run around and meet and say thank you to everyone who donated the blood that Gracie got. I wish I could, but it doesn’t work like that,” says Elizabeth. “But it is amazing to me to think there are so many different people’s blood flowing through her veins today. And because of that, and their gift to donate blood, Gracie is alive.”
