By: Jennifer Costa, Regional Communication Director

Many would call Shannon Glover a fixture in her community. This mom from a small town in Central Maine runs a local food pantry, has been named “Citizen of the Year” and has raised 12 kids. The eldest of her biological children is Logan Hamner. He’s now 25, but nearly two decades ago something happen that changed their lives forever.

“About a week after Logan’s 6^th birthday, he started showing signs that he wasn’t feeling well,” his mom Shannon said.

After a few doctors’ visits came a diagnosis no parent wants to hear. Logan had acute lymphoblastic leukemia – a type of cancer of the blood and bone marrow that affects his white blood cells. It’s also the most common childhood cancer.

“Throughout his chemo treatments, they discovered that Logan had what was known as the Philadelphia chromosome, which is something children didn’t get. The doctors had to actually research how to treat it,” Shannon explained.

Treatment involved lots of blood transfusions. Logan was hospitalized for six-months and received at least one transfusion every week, but says he lost count of exactly how many units of donated blood his little body needed.

“There is one faint memory of my mom painting a little ghost on it around Halloween just to try to cheer me up,” he said.

Doctors determined Logan needed a bone marrow transplant – and his name was added to the transplant list, but doctors warned the wait could take more than a year. So, they were surprised to hear the phone ring so soon.

“It took less than a year. We got the call the day before Thanksgiving that they found him a match – and we began the process to get him ready to receive the bone marrow,” Logan’s mom said.

Logan was in first grade at the time. Although the transplant was a success, he was too immunocompromised to attend public school. Shannon took on the task of homeschooling Logan until the school district came up with a plan for him to safely attend in-person, but largely isolated from other students.

“Unfortunately, protocol wasn’t followed, and Logan got exposed to what’s commonly known as conjunctivitis, but because of his immunocompromised state, it went to his lungs, which caused his lungs to fail,” she said.

Over the next several years, Shannon remembers countless trips to the hospital with her son and lots of blood and platelet transfusions. In 2013, at the age of 15, Logan needed a double lung transplant. It was a procedure that demanded a staggering amount of blood products.

“They told me they used 12 units of platelets, six units of cryo, one packed red blood cells and 500 units of cell saver. And then post-transplant they gave me one more thing of packed red blood cells,” Logan said, reading from his medical records.

As a teenager going through this trauma, Logan says he didn’t know much about where blood came from or its ability to save lives, but his mom was keenly aware.

“I was very grateful. Not only seeing Logan and how much he was using, but we were on a ward with other children who seemed to need the transfusions more often,” she said. “Seeing the blood being transported throughout the floor is something you notice so much, it just became normal.”

Shannon says blood donation has always been a part of her life. Her parents were donors, and they encouraged their children to grow up an give blood too.

“I can remember since I was a child that the Red Cross meant help – it’s the organization that helps,” she said. “To then be on the receiving end and realizing that someone coming in to donate blood saved my child’s life was powerful.”

Although mother and son are not currently eligible to donate blood – Logan due to his medical history and Shannon due to a new medication – the family has found an equally important way to give back, with mom leading the charge.

“I host blood drives,” Shannon said. “So even though, right now, I may not be able to donate my own blood, I can set-up a way so others can.”

Over the last two years alone, Glover has hosted more than a dozen drives. She’s come to know most of the donors personally – and her drives have resulted in the collection of thousands of pints of lifesaving blood.

“We do it the third Tuesday of every other month. We found that having a consistent schedule makes it a lot easier for our donors to remember. A lot of them actually book their next appointment while they are sitting at the refreshment table after their donation,” she said.

Shannon smiled as she shared that as a blood drive host, she gets the most questions from high school kids. She enjoys sharing her knowledge with the next generation of donors. She says most just want to know where their blood will end up.

“I tell them, ‘I can’t tell you if your blood is going to help an accident victim; if your blood is going to help a child; or if it’s even going to be in the state of Maine or Massachusetts. But the point is that that blood is saving a life somewhere,” she said.

Saving a life like Logan’s. It’s been 11 years since his transplant. He says he has some lasting challenges but is grateful to the strangers who rolled up their sleeves so many years ago so he could be here with his family today.

“I’m doing better. I can move about and function as a member of my community,” he said.

“Two things are important: to have someone by your side to support you all the way and the donated blood to keep you going.”

Join us to turn your compassion into action. Book a time to give blood or platelets by using the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org or calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800- 733-2767).