We would like to take this opportunity to provide some additional information about coronavirus and blood donation. Our hope is that people interested in donating blood consider all of the facts of the situation, namely that COVID-19 does not pose any special risk to blood donors during the donation process or from attending blood drives....

Friday, September 24 is Sport Purple for Platelets Day. This national holiday, created by the Platelet Disorder Support Association, is designed to raise awareness for those living with platelet disorders. Platelets are a type of blood cell created in bone marrow that support blood clotting. For this reason, platelet transfusions are commonly required when patients...

By Krista Thomas, Communications Strategist, with contributions from donors Cheryl Basinger, Brian Edwards and Audrey Gold When asked if we want to help save lives, the answer will, of course, be a resounding yes. And even when we’re asked to give blood, we may be game to sign up for an initial appointment, too. But,...

By Krista Thomas, Communications Strategist August 5, 2020, was one of the most frightening days of Jennifer Yu’s and Tom Li’s lives. It was on that Wednesday that they found out what had started as just frequent bloody noses in their eight-year-old daughter, Zoe, was a sign of something far scarier and far deadlier than…

By Marino Bozic, Research and Clinical Services Manager You’ve likely heard us say at SBC that when you donate blood, you’re helping the patients of today and tomorrow. But did you know the most likely way you’re helping these patients of tomorrow is with a small layer of white cells — only 30 mL per…

Imagine being 23- and 24-year-old parents when you find out your new baby girl needs a liver transplant to save her life. That was the reality for Liz Lopez and her husband Rudy Heredia. It all started just two months after their daughter Penelope was born. Liz took “Penny” in for a routine checkup where...

If you ever met Megan Mehta, you’d be struck almost instantly by her energy, her vivacity. Megan was born with a lust for life and has spent the past five years reclaiming that energy after having spent ages 8 to 13 in a state she can “best describe as the color gray.” Thanks to the…

Childhood: Sister Hearts Carolina Tejada was born in Cali, Colombia in 1978. She spent a happy, healthy childhood alongside her older brother, Juan Guillermo, and her twin sister, Catalina. At age 11, however, Juan Guillermo, who was three years older than his sisters, began experiencing cardiac symptoms that were later diagnosed as idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy,…

In 2007, DYung Lu was working full-time, going to school full-time, and getting very little sleep. Given his hectic schedule, he was unsurprised when he started to feel physical ill and worn down, but he continued to press forward. Then one day, he was lying in a hammock and one of the strings broke, sending…

Gracielle Lee went into labor with her first and only child, Bryson, when she was just 22 weeks pregnant. At such a critical period, she, her husband Barry and their care team were anxious to delay delivery as long as possible. “Bryson’s likelihood of surviving at 22 weeks was very low so, if we wanted…

Currently, more than 100,000 people are waiting for an organ transplant and, every 10 minutes, another person is added to the transplant waitlist.[1] On a daily basis, SBC supports organ donation through our HLA lab, which performs tests to detect things like donor-recipient compatibility and early transplant success/failure; and, with the help of our donors,...

Growing up, Lily Shih said she never really gave blood donation any thoughts. “I’m Chinese and it just wasn’t a big part of our culture,” she said. It wasn’t until adulthood when her mom was diagnosed with a rare neurological disease and needed transfusions of her own that Lily understood the importance of transfusion. From…