Julia Wyche - Blood donor story

Versiti Blood Research Institute

After the birth of her son, Julia experienced postpartum bleeding. However, at first, she assumed her bleeding was normal. “You’re in that situation where you're like, yeah, this seems like a little much,” she says, “but I don’t really know what’s the right amount.”

But when the bleeding continued and she began feeling weak, Julia knew that this wasn’t normal. “I told my husband Chris, ‘I think I need to get an ambulance.’ ”

It turns out that Julia’s instincts were right. Her postpartum hemorrhaging had caused blood to accumulate in her uterus. She’d need two things stat—a dilation and curettage procedure (D&C) to remove the blood and a transfusion to replace what she’d lost.

In fact, even before the D&C procedure, the trauma nurses in the ER had already started transfusing blood. It wasn’t hard to see why. Julia’s skin turned a ghostly gray.

Julia Wyche - Blood donor recipient