What Goes Around Comes Around

Over the years, Joe Zeller has given at least 33 blood donations at blood drives in his rural South Dakota town. That’s almost exactly the amount of blood he received last fall, when he was rushed into the intensive care unit with two bleeding ulcers. During his 11-day hospital stay, Joe had surgery to remove the ulcers and received multiple blood transfusions. “I was running on empty,” Joe recalls. His blood loss was so significant that he was transferred via ambulance to a larger metropolitan hospital.

Joe’s medical outlook is bright and his doctors don’t expect a recurrence. You can say that his lucky number is 33. But he’s looking forward to the day when he can donate blood again: to increase that number and to help others who face unforeseen emergencies just like the one he thankfully lived through.