By Dawn Anderson, Red Cross Volunteer

It is a parent’s worst nightmare. One day, your preteen boy is carefree, playing, getting into mischief and living the young boy’s dream. Next, you hear the words that no parent ever wants to hear: “Your son has cancer.” Those words sent Katherine Lafourcade on a journey of despair, hope and sheer determination, providing the foundation for an American Red Cross volunteer’s passion to give back.

Overnight, Lafourcade’s world began to revolve around caring for her son as he completed the difficult process of chemotherapy treatment. “He was a healthy, happy, crazy boy until everything changed,” she offered. The fearless child who once broke his leg climbing a slide became a patient, spending long hours in hospitals and infusion centers receiving treatments that would cure his cancer but ravage his body and drain his strength. As he completed the first stage of therapy, his journey grew even more challenging when he contracted a parasitic infection. With a body already struggling to cope with the impact of chemotherapy, the infection spread, and he developed sepsis. Placed in a medically induced coma and relying on machines to perform the functions of his kidneys, heart and lungs, he began losing blood, prompting multiple blood transfusions to simply keep him alive. At just 13 years old, Theo was fighting for his life. 

Throughout it all, Lafourcade stood watch as only a mother could, willing him to fight and to survive. “When you look at your child in bed hooked to tubes and you can’t help, you give everything you have and then some more. It’s your child,” she said. Lafourcade and the medical staff oversaw the many blood transfusions that kept her son alive against all odds.

After 22 days in a coma, his body began to recover and after many months of rehabilitation, Theo came home, resumed his cancer treatments and made a successful recovery. Throughout this time, Lafourcade encouraged him. “I am the mirror; he picked up his cues from me. I had to remain hopeful and determined,” she said. During this period, the family relocated from their home in Switzerland to Atlanta following job opportunities.

Once settled, Lafourcade did not forget the difficult journey her family had survived to get here. She recognized that without blood transfusions, her son would not have survived. Her grateful heart looked for ways to give back.

 At first, she was unable to donate blood because of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restrictions on people who had spent time in the United Kingdom, Ireland or France. Before 2022, concerns about the potential transmission of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), commonly known as mad cow disease, prohibited blood donations from people who had spent extended periods in those countries.

Undeterred, Lafourcade began volunteering with the Red Cross, helping organize blood drives. When the FDA lifted the ban on donating in 2022, she began to give blood and then platelets as part of her volunteer service. “For cancer treatments, platelets are the most critical,” she explained. 

Realizing many people were unaware that the rules related to mad cow disease had changed and that people who had spent time in the United Kingdom, Ireland or France were no longer restricted from donating blood, she made it her mission to educate those who may have been deferred in the past.

Leveraging her role as Executive Director of the French-American Chamber of Commerce, Lafourcade persuaded the organization to host multiple blood drives throughout the year.

“I can use my voice. I saw firsthand with my son how important blood donations are. We need people to know they can donate,” Lafourcade said.

The French-American Chamber of Commerce now sponsors an average of three blood drives each year. “People don’t always think about it. Giving blood is not a habit,” Lafourcade stressed. Using her influence and her network to spread the word about the urgent need for blood donations, Lafourcade is making a difference.

How to donate blood:  

To make an appointment or to learn more, download the American Red Cross Blood Donor App, visit RedCrossBlood.org, call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or enable the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device. Completion of a RapidPass^® online health history questionnaire is encouraged to help speed up the donation process. To get started, follow the instructions at RedCrossBlood.org/RapidPass or use the Blood Donor App.