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Snapshots

Snapshots

Thanks from blood recipients

and their families

There is no way that all the stories shared with Kate through the Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast and community could be told within the pages of her book. Instead included here are snapshots of these stories and the messages of thanks from blood recipients and their families. 

David Mead – Former Brisbane Bronco and former captain, Papua New Guinea, Kamuls

Season two, Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast
David has seen friends’ babies need blood products to survive and his son spent time in a neonatal intensive care unit following his premature birth. In his retirement from being a professional athlete he is championing the need for blood donation and he is a proud member of the Milkshakes for Marleigh community.

Kylie Miller – Author and blood product recipient

Season two, Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast
Kylie Miller will be dependent on intravenous immunoglobulin infusions (IVIG) for life to treat multifocal motor neuropathy. She has experienced the reality of not being able access her treatment due to critical blood shortages.

Kylie is an award-winning author who has written books that have supported children through challenges such as the aftermath of the Australian bushfires of the 2019-20 summer.

Dean Hewitt – Curler, Australian Winter Olympian

Season two – Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast
Dean thanks Australian blood donors for donating the blood that his beloved teammate and coach Ian ‘Icenut’ Pellagioneeded while fighting blood cancer. Dean knows that the blood products Ian received gifted him more time with his loved ones and the Australian and international curling communities.

Molly Dawson – Blood recipient and cancer survivor

Milkshakes for Marleigh community member
Molly Dawson was seventeen and just about to commence a gap year after finishing school when she was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma. This meant relocating to Brisbane as her hometown of Bundaberg didn’t have the facilities she required for her treatment. While her peers were travelling the world, starting university or their careers and falling in love, Molly undergoing gruelling chemotherapy, losing her hair and wondering if she was going to survive.

Molly thanks Australian blood donors for making her treatment possible and giving her a future beyond cancer. She is now studying criminology at Sunshine Coast University, works at Australia Zoo and has devoted herself tovolunteering and telling her story to help
others. Some of her proudest moments have been working with The Sony Foundation to help young people in need, raising awareness and funds for cancer research as ambassador for Relay for Life, offering peer support to other young people with cancer as an ambassador for Canteen’s Bandana Day and being a proud blood donation advocate volunteering to tell her story to support Lifeblood in recruiting new blood donors. She is also a proud member of the Milkshakes for Marleigh community and encourages all eligible Australians to make a blood donation.

Rebecca Ind – Blood donor and blood product recipient

Season two, Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast
Australian blood donors helped Rebecca Ind to become a mother. After suffering recurrent pregnancy loss, she received anti-D immunoglobulin to assist her in sustaining a pregnancy and create her family.

Long before becoming a recipient, Beck was a committed long-term blood donor. She has made over two hundreddonations and has no intentions of slowing down anytime soon.

Beck is the greatest cheerleader for the Milkshakes for Marleigh blood donation advocacy movement and is one of Marleigh’s favourite people.

Siohhan Wilson – fourteen-year-old business owner andblood recipient

Season three – Milkshakes for Marleigh podcast
Siobhan was born more than three months early and her life was saved by Australian blood donors on many occasions throughout her complex medical journey. Her mother Fiona received lifesaving blood products after the birth of Siobhan’s older sister, making it possible for Siobhan to even exist!

At the age of fourteen, Siobhan is the founder of Our Pixie Friends and is on a mission to help sick kids feel less alone. She uses her lived experiences to create support packs, sensory toys and picture books to support young people all over Australia who are facing challenges or trauma.

Siobhan and Fiona thank those who donated the blood that saved their lives and encourage all eligible Aussies to consider making a donation in the future.

Sam Ryan – Motor vehicle accident survivor and blood donor

Milkshakes for Marleigh community member
Sam was driving from Canberra to Forbes, NSW, to work at a music festival when a microsleep resulted in his car leaving the road and hitting a tree at 100km/hour. Sam was only seventeen when he survived this near-death experience. He received large volumes of plasma and blood, which in addition to saving his life, resulted in him developing an extremely rare antibody called anti-D.

Sam in now one of the one hundred anti-D plasma donors in Australia; these antibodies save thousands of Australian babies per year. Sam knows that Australian blood donors saved his life, and he has made a lifelong commitment to blood donation in his second chance at life.

Brooke Hanson, OAM – Olympic gold medalist swimmer, former world record holder and world champion

Milkshakes for Marleigh community member
Brooke Hanson will always be known as an outstanding Australian swimmer. She is now one of Australia’s most sought-after keynote speakers. Her life experience informs her work not from just her time in the pool, but in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), after giving birth to her son , Jack Hanson Clarke, at just twenty-eight weeks and five days, twelve weeks prematurely.

During his time in the NICU, Jack received countless blood products to sustain his life. Brooke describes that in the time her and husband Jared spent with him, Jack showed so much personality and determination. In the end, no amount of blood products could overcome Jack’s chronic lung disease and pulmonary hypertension, and he lost his battle after suffering a cardiac arrest at just nine months old.

Over a decade since Jack’s passing, Brooke and Jared remain dedicated to increasing awareness about premature birth, blood donation and ‘the importance of family’.

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