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Sharing diverse, remarkable, and inspiring real-life stories is what the I am OneBlood movement is all about.

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Nilsa

Hialeah, Florida

I was admitted to Memorial West Hospital on (Jan. 2008), I was sick and was coughing up a little bit of red sputum and I was feeling like something was very wrong.

I kept pacing back & forth in the emergency room, couldn't sit down and I was breathing rapidly. I never imagined that my trip to the emergency room would lead me to being admitted.

I was told by my husband, that the physicians ran a number of tests on me to pinpoint what was going on. 

Nilsa

They told him that I had "pneumonia" and that my smoking had complicated things. I had been smoking, since I was in high school and it started with one pack, after that it was an addiction, cause then I smoked heavily, about (2) packs a day due to nerves and stress. The physician also stated to my husband, that my heart was pumping rapidly and that I had a "white-out" in my lungs, which in medical terms means (my lungs were full of fluid)!

The last words I remember hearing from the physician was, "we are going to have to make an incision in her throat." I was in a medically induced coma for a month and was doing real bad.  Every day for a month, the physician told my husband, that I was stable. My husband stated to me, that behind my hospital bed, there was a plastic container that was full of blood, which was what was coming out of my lungs. He told me, that I was given a "blood transfusion" and that my daughter wanted to donate her blood, but they told her that the blood had to go through a process and it would take too long.

I do know one thing, my life was saved, cause of  blood donors.  I wouldn't be here now to tell my story! I am a "blood recipient" and I too have been a blood donor. It's been (8) years and I am smoke-free.

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