So.. one of the challenges of the ecmo was the it basically took most of my blood out of my body, oxygenated it and put it back.. but I guess because the majority of my blood was outside of my body getting the oxygen, the blood I had left in me wasn't enough.. so I ended up needing a blood transfusion. (Disclaimer: I'm not actually sure if that's the reason haha but it makes sense to me, so that's what I'm going with.)
Needing the transfusion explained my chills, and the reason that I was more exhausted and had less strength than before. The problems with getting a transfusion:
-- It complicates the donor selection process.. making my donors even more limited.
-- the blood transfusion can't go through my regular IV (my port) so they'd have to access another vein for an IV .. and my veins are tiny to begin with.. and now they are lacking blood .. wasn't going to be good.
So anyway, God is nice (why should I be surprised?) and they numbed up my arm pretty hardcore, and tried to put in a mid-line -- which is basically a sturdier, longer lasting IV -- unsuccessfully. Then they decided to try to put an IV in my ankle because frankly there weren't a lot of options left to try for. I laid there trying to hold still the best I could while one of my sisters in Christ held her phone next to me just replaying a God song that really helped to calm me. (Thank you, Patti! I'm impressed at how long you could hold your arm up! haha!) Praying, and singing, and trying to fight off panic attacks, God opened up that tiny vein, and they quickly set up my transfusion, and I definitely felt the improvement of it the next day.
At the time I was too tired and sick to feel how scary this really was. I was obviously a priority patient for procuring (getting) lungs for because of how sick I was, and we hadn't received one single call.. not ANY potentials even.. and now we are putting another limit on the lungs that I can receive.. the possibility of getting lungs, at least to me, seemed to just be getting dimmer and dimmer.
Obviously we know that darkness was completely overwhelmed by the Light. Thank You, Jesus!
Anyway, I needed two blood transfusions -- one before transplant, and one after. Yesterday at the store, the clerk was wearing a shirt that said "donate blood" so I asked him if he had donated blood. He told me he had and I thanked him, telling him that a blood donor saved my life and I've had two blood transfusions..
This is one of the things that is slowly coming around to me about transplant. Everything was SUCH a big deal that I'm still just now getting around to feeling the impact and realizing what happened.
A blood donor helped save my life. I needed blood, and without it, I wouldn't have made it to transplant. So to all of you who donate blood and take it lightly; don't. You don't know how much of an impact this simple act has made upon someone -- you are literally donating blood to save lives. Who knows, maybe it's even one of you who saved mine. All I can say is thank you..
And then I got to thinking even more... A blood donor saved my life. Jesus is the first blood donor.. I know we hear this cliché all the time haha but that doesn't make it any less true. Needing transfusions really hit me hard and I am SO thankful for the person who decided to donate their blood one day.. Like really thankful, to the point of tears. And then I thought.. my salvation is SO much greater than anything on this earth.. this whole situation has made me realize how lightly I take my salvation without even knowing, and how gracious God is to us to not only keep saving us, but also to gently remind us how grand our salvation through Jesus Christ is.. which I still can't comprehend fully.
So thankful tonight (and every night) for my blood donors, and for the very first blood donor.
I've been saved physically through my donor's blood, and saved completely through Jesus' because God is love. <3
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