Within the same month, Máirín Geddis turned 30 years old, gave birth and was diagnosed with cancer.
She gave birth to her son on 5 November 2019 and nine days later she was diagnosed with lymphoma in her chest.
“I had six rounds of chemotherapy and 15 rounds of radio therapy and I would be in hospital for a week at time, but the hardest thing was leaving my baby because he was tiny,” she said.
“It just felt like a lot of life happened at once – it’s a lot of things to happen at the same time.”
Máirín received a number of blood transfusions after chemotherapy to enable her to have the strength to go home and see her family again.
“I’ve given blood since I was 20, but I never thought too much about who might use it. I assumed it was somebody who had a car accident or someone having surgery.
“So to then be the person with cancer who needed it, it really opened my eyes.”
As well as for procedures such as emergency surgery, blood transfusions are used after mothers give birth and patients’ post-cancer treatment.
The NI Blood Transfusion service (NIBTS) has said that as lockdown eases the demand for blood from hospitals has increased rapidly.
Máirín says she’s grateful for being able to benefit from donated blood.
“I remember sitting there getting the transfusion thinking: ‘Isn’t it so magical that’s someone has essentially donated medicine to me.’
“Thankfully now I’ve finished my treatments, I’m waiting on a final scan but I’m feeling pretty good.”
She added: “People will say: ‘How did you deal with all that?’ And you don’t know you can until you have to and it makes you go, ‘wow maybe I’m a bit stronger than I think’.”
NIBTS is reminding the public that blood donations are still required and that travelling to give blood is classed as essential travel.
Details on donating blood can be found on nibts.org.
Video journalist: Niall McCracken