Maryland woman shares how blood donations saved her life, encourages others to donate

PRESTON, Md. – For the past 19 years Dawn Jones has lived with a rare but severe lung disease known as pulmonary hypertension. A disease that comes with it’s fair share of challenges alone.

“There’s a lot of medication that I take, I take over 30 pills a day And I have a continuous infusion.”

But she faced one of her biggest challenges just earlier this year after her illness caused her intestine to bleed, and doctors had no way of stopping it.

“The doctors did three endoscopies and four colonoscopies and also a vein procedure trying to get to the bleed and stop the bleed,” said Jones.

With all the blood leaving Jones’ body, doctors had to start giving her blood transfusions until they found a way to stop the bleeding. And for the next 6 1/2 weeks she’d receive as many as three units a day.

“Without that blood I would have not been able to survive for the doctors to be able to figure something out.

After experiencing how important blood donations are first hand, Jones was inspired to host her own blood drive this coming Saturday at the Preston Volunteer Fire Company to help make a difference.

“There’s no other way to get the blood. People have to donate. And without those donations there wouldn’t be the blood supply that’s needed.”

And she says the 15 to 20 minutes it takes to give blood could help save the life of even just one person.

I don’t want to see anybody else lose their life, when someone could just simply step up and donate blood.

Jones will be holding the blood drive this coming Saturday at the Preston Volunteer Fire Company and it begins at 10 AM. Jones adds that she’s aiming for about 100 donors at this drive and she’s actually almost halfway there. If you would like to sign up to donate– you can visit  www.delmarvablood.org to find all the information you need.