# @americanredcross on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DDX-wliswYo
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/72589284-americanredcross-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/836a2f2a84.jpg
- **Posted:** 2024-12-09T22:39:50.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** American Red Cross (@americanredcross) — https://gondola.cc/americanredcross

## Caption

After her college sweetheart passed away from bone cancer in 2017, Caitlin Sebastian left her career in real estate to pursue medicine and is now in her third year of medical school.

“Ryan was playing in a men’s league hockey game and hurt his shoulder. When he went to the doctor, things suddenly got very serious. He was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. 

They did a biopsy, and at that time, the prognosis was really good. Every three weeks, he’d get chemotherapy. It was about a year of treatment, and then they did surgery on his arm to remove the tumor and do a bone graft. Two months later, he had his first set of maintenance scans, and we immediately find out he's going to die because his cancer had spread.

Seconds after finding out the news, we decided it was now or never to have a baby. We had thankfully banked some of his sperm before he started chemo, and I got pregnant with Charles.

Five weeks before Charles was born, Ryan had emergency surgery for a hemothorax. A tumor grew through one of the arteries in his lungs and ripped it open. I wish I remembered how many units of blood he got, I just remember them saying a ton. That would have killed him if he had not gotten blood and he would have just missed the birth of his son.

Charles came early at 34 weeks old, and Ryan died nine days later. The stars kind of aligned for him to meet Charles in that situation. There was a week when we were all patients at the same hospital. Ryan ended up going on hospice there, I was in the postpartum wing, and Charlie was in the NICU.

When Ryan got sick and when he died, I realized I would not be selling real estate if I had cancer. I think that was his legacy, this feeling that I needed something that I would want to keep doing if I was sick.

I did a post-baccalaureate program at Harvard for two years and then I applied to medical school. Everything that I was doing to build my resume for med school felt incredibly rewarding and I was happy to go to work. I really felt like I'd found my purpose."

We’re honored to share Caitlin's story and hope it inspires you to give blood this holiday season. Tap on the link in our bio to learn more. #StoriesThatInspire #GiveWithMeaning

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## Tags

storiesthatinspire, givewithmeaning

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