Meet Paolo –a Hemophiliac

A week ago there was an announcement at church saying that a kid from our church, Paulo, had some blood loss and needed someone to donate a unit of blood (he is a hemophiliac meaning his blood clots significantly slower that other people). In the States people are more apt to donate when there is a need, however this is not the case down here. They were looking for O+. After a while, we had three volunteers –including one of our girls, Rosany. We decided to head into the hospital first thing in the morning. At 11pm that same night, I got a call saying the kid was doing worse and needed the blood right now.

I headed into the hospital (the Regional one, in Punchana!) and met the other two donors. Everyone got their blood tested, and one by one, rejected. One person was sick, another recently had a Hepatitis B shot, another, Rosany, was too short and skinny. They wanted to check my blood, but I told them I was 90% sure I was A+ ­­­–I should have said 100%. They checked my blood, and sure enough, it turned out A+.

Iquitos has recently done a campaign to get everyone vaccinated with the Hep. B shot, so that wiped out almost everyone we could think of. I was able to get a hold of Darin Blood (fitting last name) asking him if he could donate (he has O+). They ran some tests on his blood, and later the next morning he was able to give little Paolo (2 years old) a unit of blood. We found out that he was playing in the house, tripped and fell, and had been in the hospital now for 2 full days bleeding. The mother said that within two hours of giving Darin’s blood, color had returned to Paolo’s face and his mouth stopped bleeding –what a blessing from God. Monday morning, Darin went in again to donate 100cc’s (however it ended up being 250 cc’s–half a unit). This is not allowed in the States, but Darin’s blood again helped Paolo recuperate enough to leave the next day –Darin has some amazing blood.

Right now we are working with the family to get them to go to Lima to receive some testing so that Paolo can be on medicine to help him with Hemophilia. We found out that in Iquitos, 11 people have what he does (there are over 500,000 people that live here). Iquitos does not have a blood bank so the nearest treatment is in Lima. Once Paolo gets to Lima, gets testing to see which type of Hemophilia he has, he can return to Iquitos and receive treatment here (which will be sent via Lima).

We visited the family the other day and Paolo is again running around and regaining his strength. Sadly, every time he saw us he started crying; but I think part of that had to do with his cousin telling him that he was going to turn into a gringo (what they call us here) because of all the white person blood he had inside of him. His mother said that this was his 4th emergency visit to the hospital since birth and that he has received over 25 blood transfusions –Darin’s was the fastest acting. God is good. We are so grateful that God placed Darin here to help this kid out.

Neighbor kid playing with his bicycle...

We were all invited over for lunch. It was scrumptous.

Here Paolo is receiving Darin's super charged blood.

Here we have patient and donor. Paolo's mother, Shirly, is also present.