“Let’s make what’s important go viral: donating blood saves lives”

Some people dream of being an ‘influencer’ and setting trends in fashion or cooking. Become an opinion leader and make a profession out of a skill.
Zaira Cabrera Cáceres went to the networks with the intention of influencing, but in her case to raise awareness of the importance of donating blood. his daughter,
Oria, 4 years old, suffers from mixed phenotype leukemia, a type of leukemia that only occurs in 5% of cases. Treatment against this cancer lowers platelets, so
need to receive blood transfusions. But blood banks don’t always have stock. The Canarian Institute of Hemodonation and Hemotherapy (ICHH) is constantly making calls to attract blood and platelet donors, both with mobile units and at fixed positions in hospitals. “But
It seems that if you don’t face the problems, you don’t react,” says Zaira. That is why it occurred to him to use a photograph of her daughter and call for a donation. “I did it a bit at the level of friends, but the truth has had a greater impact than expected,” she confesses.

A gesture

In his opinion, ”
people give importance to things that do not have itespecially in the media. What if that one did this or that… Yes, they are asked to donate blood but something is wrong because people are not sensitive. You don’t know what it’s like to donate platelets or how important it is because
e with a gesture that requires almost no time, or the same time you spend in front of social networks, you save a life, you save a person».

Zaira remembers that not only boys and girls like her daughter, or sick people need blood. He is also needed for “pregnant women, the injured… blood banks are for everyone.” And in his specific case, he recounts,
“our children usually need transfusions” and they are aware that “banks were scarce”That is why he decided to spread his message on social networks.

Low defenses

Little Oria undergoes a weekly analysis. Boys and girls with leukemia “usually need platelets and blood.
Chemo lowers the entire immune system and sometimes they need transfusions weekly or every fortnight. Once another little girl had to be postponed because there was no O+ blood. If they do not receive it, they do not have platelets and the body does not clot, the lack of blood can cause anemia and, consequently, they get sicker, the other organs can fail.

“It is also due to ignorance.
Many people do not know the great scope of donating “, Oria’s mother abounds, “even marrow. It is very difficult for you to be compatible, but there is the possibility and if you are, you save a life.

It can happen to anyone

For Zaira it would be unnecessary for her to have to make this appeal, “that we have to make Tik Tok videos”, but there is no “conscience”, she repeats. «
They should go to the institutes to educate young peopletalk to them about the disease and that it is necessary to donate, “he explains.

In fact, he claims
this would have to “go viral. Let the important thing go viral: donating blood saves lives. The disease does not have a name and surname, it can happen to anyone,” he says.

His action has had an impact in his immediate environment. Her husband is in the military and in the army he is “carrying out campaigns” to donate blood, also among “the National Police”, and they have already proposed that they be repeated. But Zaira believes that more should be done, for example among companies with large workforces, “that from time to time offer an opportunity to donate, if we all did that together” things could change.
“Everyone has a lack of time, we are running, running, until life presents you with an adversity like this.”

Oria’s disease is now in “remission process” following “a strong cycle of chemocorticoids…”. Zaira says that they are “on their way”, but that she lives “24 hours and tomorrow is another day” because “happiness is hours and minutes in the day. You can’t be happy always, but you can try to be happy every day.