# @americanredcross on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/CzUFlzWOJ2_
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/9738455-americanredcross-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/thumbnails/dcd2dcb524.jpg
- **Posted:** 2023-11-06T18:00:14.000+00:00

## Caption

Kayla Smith Owens understands firsthand the importance of blood donations. She was diagnosed with sickle cell disease when she was born and had her first blood transfusion when she was 12 years old to treat extreme pain associated with the disease.
 
Now, at 24, she’s become accustomed to managing sickle cell disease and its complications, including pain crises after surgeries. In April, she underwent gallbladder surgery fully knowing that she was going to go into a sickle cell crisis after.
 
“Everything went fine surgery-wise, I was just having pain from the sickle cell," Kayla said. "Two days after surgery, I woke up, thought everything was fine and that I was going to go home the next day. But about a couple hours after I woke up, I went to the bathroom. I felt super dizzy and fell on the floor and I was trying to get up myself, but I couldn’t.”
 
She pulled a cord in the bathroom to alert her nurses that she needed help.
 
“The nurses all rushed in,” Kayla said. “I realized when I saw their faces that something was wrong. They helped me get in my bed, and at that point, that's when I found out that I had lost a lot of blood.
 
“They ended up taking me to the ICU where they started giving me blood. But the problem was, when they were giving blood, I was still bleeding. They'd give me the blood, and it would all come back out. We did that for about two days until I finally stopped bleeding. Over the course of my ICU stay, I got six separate blood transfusions.”
 
Thankfully, she stopped bleeding and her levels returned to a place where she could be transferred out of the ICU. A scope procedure showed that the bleeding came from an ulcer, which had ruptured after the gallbladder surgery.
 
“I’ve always felt that blood donation was important as a sickle cell patient. Even though I don't receive blood as much as others, I've always felt that it was super important. But I think that this situation put me in that space because this was a time where my life literally depended on having blood. If it was not for blood, I would not be here right now, so I'm so appreciative to people that donate blood.”

#DonateBlood #GiveBlood #SickleCellDisease #SickleCellWarrior

## Stats

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## Tags

sicklecelldisease, sicklecellwarrior, giveblood, donateblood

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