Susan Greenhorn of Mitchellville remembers what her daughter looked like before receiving a blood transfusion.

“Her skin would become very, very pale; her lips would become gray; her eyes would sink into her head. She would give the appearance of not even being there,” Susan said.

Susan’s 11-year-old daughter Rebekkah was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare bone cancer, in August 2002. Since her diagnosis, she has had eight surgeries, 11 months of aggressive chemotherapy, 10 blood transfusions and seven platelet transfusions. She had three ribs cut out of her side to be able to remove a cancerous bone.

Rebekkah needed a transfusion about every six weeks during her 11 months of treatment. Rebekkah said she could tell when she would need a transfusion because she would feel “out of it.”

“I would be really sleepy … but after getting a transfusion, I would feel just like playing outside,” she said.

“We would watch them hook her up to that blood hanging over her head on the IV pole and watch the blood flow back into her. The color coming back into her — the pink coming into her cheeks, color coming back into her lips, the glazed look diminishing — it was miraculous to us,” Susan said.

Susan remembers being struck by the children lined up in recliners for blood transfusions.

“It’s not normal; it’s not right. They are dependent on strangers,” she said.

Susan said it changed her daughter physically and emotionally.

“Prior to her diagnosis, she was the most competitive child I’d ever seen,” she said.

A child that used to play tackle football couldn’t even move from sofa to sofa without a struggle, she said.

Rebekkah said before she got sick, she was just like all the other kids — but now she’s not.

“I’ve grown to be a wizened old woman,” she said.

Susan Greenhorn speaks at events around Iowa about the importance of donating blood as a way to repay the Blood Center of Iowa and everyone who helped Rebekkah stabilize.

Rebekkah has spoken occasionally as well.

“She’ll get up and tell people ‘Thank you’ and that she appreciates that she is here,” Susan said.

Susan understands students are busy, but she said she hopes they will take the time to donate blood.

“The little time it takes out of their day can mean a life full of time for these children and adults,” she said.