Twin brothers Wyatt and Grady Griffin are always up for an adventure, like finding another set of twins at the Oklahoma City Zoo – only in mountain lion form.
“We’re identical twins, just like you and your brother!” Grady yelled to the zoo’s mountain lion brothers.
The boys who are seemingly attached at the hip, also jumped at the chance to feed a family of giraffes.
“I’m just a small guy,” Grady said while comparing his height to the zoo’s giraffes.
It was just a few years ago that the twins came into this world much smaller than intended.
“They were born three months premature. So, when they're born that early, they can't produce enough blood for themselves,” Joy, Wyatt and Grady’s mom said.
It was May of 2017 when both Wyatt and Grady were born weighing less than three pounds.
Joy’s water had broken early. That’s when she was Medi flighted to Mercy Hospital in Oklahoma City, where she remained for two weeks until the boys were born through C-section.
“They each actually had to have three different transfusions over the course of about three months that they were there,” Joy said.
Just like their mom, the twins both have O-negative blood, the universal blood type, menaing they can only be transfused with O-negative.
Joy, who worked as a phlebotomist for Our Blood Institute years earlier, understood the importance of O-negative blood donors.
“I think that people underestimate how necessary it is. I mean, especially O-negative people. That's the only lifeline you have, is other O-negative donors. And with you know, these little guys. Yeah, in the NICU, that's all they give. But they're both O-negative, so that's all they could get anyways,” Joy said.
Their dad Clayton said he had given blood in the past, before the boys were born, but their need for transfusions gave him a deeper understanding of the gift of blood donation.
“I never really addressed it until I experienced it, like having the twins in there. And how much impact it makes and how much you don't realize. And then whenever you start understanding, like with Joy having worked there, like the demand and, and how much it can be increased with just the seasons or what's going on in the world, it's crazy,” Clayton said.
While Wyatt and Grady will have to wait a few years before they can donate, the two brothers have already committed to helping others through blood donations, just like the donors who saved them.
“I'll give to someone who doesn't really have so much O-negative blood in them. I'll help them get it,” Wyatt said.
“You know, I will give some that don't have O-negative blood some of my O-negative,” Grady said.
