RICE TOWNSHIP -- A mom in Luzerne County says she is beyond grateful for the gift of blood.
Her youngest needed a blood transfusion when he was a newborn. She says she and her family wanted to say thanks and give back with a celebration of life blood drive on Wednesday.
The Bleiler kids were busy on their day off from school in Mountain Top.
They are Xavier,7; Alexis, 5; Maximus, 4; and Paxton, 2.
Mom Heather now can't keep Paxton off the furniture but remembers how scared she and her husband were when, at week 32 of her pregnancy, she stopped feeling him move and doctors ordered an emergency C-section.
“I can remember thinking, as they wheeled me down the hall, just let him be alive,” Heather said. “The blood supply that separated his blood from my blood was damaged, and he lost his blood supply to me.”
Heather had had a fetal maternal hemorrhage and Paxton, just minutes old, needed a blood transfusion.
Today he's healthy and won't need more blood. But the Bleilers know somebody else out there does.
“After we had Paxton we thought about some way we could give back for everything we got. We really felt like we were given a tremendous gift.”
The American Red Cross is holding three simultaneous blood drives in Paxton's honor, asking you to donate if you can. You can stop by one of three locations:
- the Woodlands outside Wilkes-Barre,
- Genetti's in Hazleton,
- The Hilton in Scranton
from 1p.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday.
Heather says her family will never know whose blood saved Paxton's life. But she'd love to help you save someone else's.
“If that person is out there, I can't thank you enough.”
