When his older son, Geoffrey, was a toddler, a nurse at the doctor’s office commented on how long he bled after a finger prick. George DeFilippi and his wife Patricia didn’t think much of it. Then his second son James came along in 1978 and they were given a diagnosis. It was not good. Both sons had hemophilia, a bleeding disorder in which the blood does not clot normally and bleeding can be uncontrolled and spontaneous.
“We were scared,” George says.
George, a retired Air Force Colonel, was then stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, just outside Dayton, OH. When word got out of his sons’ hemophilia, the community rallied around his family.
“A bunch of our friends, unbeknownst to us, had a blood drive for us. There were 90 people that donated blood. A variety of them were scared about getting stuck with a needle, but they donated nonetheless,” George recalls. “We were just shocked and immensely grateful. We couldn’t believe the outpouring. That people would do such a thing for us was just a marvelous feeling.”
That was George’s first experience with the Red Cross. He was so moved he wanted to give back and began donating blood. Since 1978, he has given blood or platelets a little over 240 times. He started out giving blood, which can be donated every 56 days. He wanted to do more so he switched to platelets, which can be given 24 times a year or about every two weeks. George, 70, has slowed down a bit and now gives between 15 and 20 times a year. The process takes about two and a half hours.
As it turned out, George says, his sons had mild cases of hemophilia and only needed transfusions when they had injuries, probably a couple of times a month. As youngsters, they played a variety of sports and rollerbladed. They were very good at rollerblading but occasionally would fall, scrape a knee and need to be infused. George and his wife learned to do the infusions at home so they could usually avoid the hospital, but not always. Geoffrey, for example, had a bad sprain in the knee and was hospitalized for a couple of days.
As a youngster, James was a daredevil. He would get gashes in his head that would have to be treated.
“We found him a couple of times stacking chairs on top of chairs to try to get to cookies that were on top of the refrigerator when he was three or four,” George says. “He always was kind of a risk taker, doing those kinds of things where he would stretch the limits of his balance.”
Both sons are now in their 40’s and are healthy and very athletic. Geoffrey mountain climbs and James competes in triathlons.
George lives with his wife Patricia in Falls Church, VA. Along with his sons, he has two daughters, Jocelyn and Gwendolyn. After he retired from the Air Force, he worked in government relations for Cobham, a defense contractor, and then as a Navy civil servant.
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