It’s hard to believe that for the bulk of 2019, Katy Crain knew very little about cancer. She considered herself lucky to have never had any close family members affected by it, and while she was sympathetic to cancer patients...
By Lia Adams, guest blogger, Milestone blood donor and plasma recipient Medical Background When I was a kid, we didn’t know I had a primary immune deficiency. All we knew was that I got sick more often than average, sometimes with...
This summer, Stanford Blood Center (SBC) and LifeServe Blood Center brought together two very special heroes. Shanti Minkstein, a photographer from San Francisco, California, and Lance Becker, a banker from Des Moines, Iowa, joined a Zoom call to discuss their...
As first-time parents, Kylie De La O-Menard and her husband Guillaume Menard knew that there were many challenges they would have to work through as part of learning to care for a new baby — the exhaustion, the baby’s crying,...
When Teddy Oh was 18 months old, his mother and father, Won and Jin, knew something was not right. Teddy had had a persistent cough, and though his doctors did not think much of it at first, the cough was...
In May of 2013, Nicole Porto was thriving in all aspects of life. She had built up a life for herself that she was proud of. Physically, she had been training for the Brooklyn Half Marathon and felt extremely strong;...
When Rachel Ren* was a junior, she was thrilled at the opportunity to give blood at her high school’s SBC mobile drive. Rachel had never had an experience with blood donation before — never had a family member need blood...
HOW BLOOD DONORS SUPPORTED A 15-YEAR-OLD’S LIVE-SAVING OPEN-HEART SURGERY On October 4, 2014, Nick Farrell* was riding high celebrating a momentous occasion: his 15th birthday. One week later, on October 11, he was grappling with a very different life-altering event:...
Mother’s Day was this past weekend, and we hope you enjoyed your time with the mothers in your life! Although the day may have passed, we want to continue to appreciate moms all over by taking a moment to celebrate some...
Every year, 15,780 children in the United States are diagnosed with cancer. In fact, according to Children’s Cancer Research Fund, each day, 43 families in the United States will hear that their child has cancer. That’s why we observe September...