By Mary Jo Blackwood, American Red Cross of Colorado storyteller
In 1990, Janet Annan immigrated to the United States from Ghana for more opportunities for her and her family. After she and her family were together in Colorado, Janet decided to visit relatives in New York City. At the time, she was four months pregnant, and because she had had a normal pregnancy with her first child, felt comfortable making the trip.
One day, Janet and a cousin were out shopping and had stopped for lunch. She suddenly started burping and her stomach swelled up, causing her cousin to tease her that it was so big this early, she must be having twins. She dismissed the symptoms and went back to her relatives. During dinner, she started having severe back pain and went to lie down. The burping started up again and she became alarmed and called her aunt for help. After that, she didn’t remember anything until she became aware that she was in an ambulance. She heard the paramedics shout that they were losing her and there was a lot of activity. She heard her aunt screaming “Save her!”
Janet was in and out of consciousness as she was transferred to a hospital. She had lost a tremendous amount of blood and her four-month old fetus. She recalled having received at least seven pints of blood during an operation to stop the bleeding and remained in the ICU for weeks.
Janet needed more blood during a second surgery. All told, she was in the hospital for 23 days and with the help of physical therapists became strong enough to get back home to Colorado. She was admitted to Rose Hospital for a third surgery and received more Red Cross blood.
“That blood was indeed lifesaving,”, says Janet: “If I had stayed in Ghana I would have died because the only way you could get blood was for a relative to donate a pint to replace a pint you received. A relative would have had to donate for each unit. I didn’t have enough relatives.”
Janet is very happy to share her story and to do all she can going forward to advocate for the Red Cross blood that saved her life. Her story has a very happy ending. She went on to have a son. Her children are both grown now, her daughter a pediatrician with three children and her son working for a major advertising firm as a brand director. Janet herself went on to get a Master’s degree from Colorado State University and has a thriving career as a high-performance coach, helping people reach their highest level of performance and potential, so they succeed and excel over a long period of time and maintain it.
Her plan for this summer, now that the American Red Cross is collecting blood in Colorado, is to try to organize some blood drives for the African community, particularly to call attention for the need for blood for sickle cell anemia patients. “I want people to know how important blood donation is for saving lives.”
About the new Red Cross initiative:
The American Red Cross has been serving the people of Colorado for 110 years in areas such as relief to families affected by disasters, training in lifesaving skills, providing services to active and veteran U.S. military personnel and their families, and distributing blood products to local hospitals.
We are the largest blood supplier in the United States and have a long history of distributing blood to Colorado hospitals in the Denver area. In all, over the last year, The Red Cross supplied nearly 33,600 units of blood and blood products to 14 hospitals.
Across the country, Red Cross operates about 500 blood drives a day. Each day, we need to collect 12,500 blood donations and 3,000 platelet donations to keep up with the need. We estimate that about 62 percent of the U.S. population is eligible to give blood, but only about 3 percent do. Now more people than ever can donate because of recent eligibility changes. The need for blood is constant because it can’t be manufactured. Every two seconds someone in the U.S. needs blood.
Hosting a blood drive can make it easier for people to give blood. All the hosts have to provide is a large open room with enough space to provide privacy for donors, volunteers for recruiting scheduling and supporting donors, and attracting donors to the event. There is no financial commitment involved in hosting a blood drive. The Red Cross handles everything else: screening of potential doners, the collection of blood by trained staff, the processing and testing of each unit of blood in laboratories, and the labeling, storage and distribution of blood products.