Listener: Overall it took a few months to feel 100% and I could have prevented the trauma I faced in those months if I had accepted the transfusion.
This is key, Listener.
The WT likes to boast about how blood isn't necessary, about how the odd patient here and there had such a low blood count and still survived...blah, blah, blah. And about how "patients who don't take blood do better than those who have blood".
What is often overlooked with these seemingly miraculous survivals without blood is the increased morbidity that happens when someone has low blood count. The recovery time on some of these patients is long, hard, and often results in permanent damage of some kind. I have heard accounts of patients who survived without blood but were left with permanent disabilities like limited hand use, etc.
This is something that is not accounted for in those apparently evidence based studies that float around to support the notion that "no blood is better". Those studies have all been conducted on in-hospital patients and people like you, Listener, never make it into the medical literature. Once a patient is discharged, they no longer show up in the data that is used for those studies. So, as a result, the studies will show that no blood is better....but that is just for as long as you are still a patient. There have been no long term effects considered and, as far as I know, there are no studies done on JW patients after they have been discharged as to the long term effects of being oxygen deprived for a period of time.
