Giving blood is giving the gift of life. It’s a phrase you’ve likely heard before but it’s one Washington’s Tara Brower now takes to heart.
In December, Brower, mom to four little boys, Edwards Jones financial advisor and 4-H advocate was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of blood cancer, on Dec. 7. A normal part of Brower’s treatment at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas, includes receiving blood products.
“It’s very normal to receive blood products, transfusions and platelets, through the course of many cancer treatments and these have become life saving measures for many of us,” said Brower, who explained that the cancer or chemotherapy drugs or both often cause patients levels to drop and the need for blood products.
There have been times though that those blood products have not always been readily available for Brower or others in need.
“There have been times through the course of my treatment that due to blood shortages, most likely caused by COVID and not as many people feeling comfortable giving, that a determination had to be made on if a patient is ‘deserving’ of blood,” said Brower, who said that means patients meet a normal threshold that is defined by the doctors and sometimes there may be others in the hospital or within a certain area who are in more need.
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