We've been busy the last week or so trying to hit the PR trail and get as many people as possible to donate to the blood drive before things really slow down next week with the holidays.  

First off - THANK YOU to the many folks that have already donated - WE APPRECIATE IT MORE THAN YOU KNOW!  

​As a reminder, the blood drive runs through 12/31 and you can click below to get to the sign up page:

Now on to the media blitz :-)   I was able to grab some time with NBC Chicago last week and they ran a segment on the blood drive + some commentary on Cal's Angels.  Click the NBC logo below to view the segment... thank you NBC and Lauren Petty!

Additionally, I was able to do an extended interview with 3 of Chicago's major radio stations that they aired a little over a week ago.  Thank you to Rachel @ the Sherman & Tingle show for making this happen.

Thus far drive numbers are down quite a bit from both 2019 and 2020... so we're really hoping to see a surge in the final 10 days to bring it home.  This year has been especially tough with blood donations, and this month there is no exception with everyone distracted due to the holidays.  We run the drive in December for 2 reasons:  (1) there are huge needs in December due to the lower than normal turnouts... blood doesn't keep long in terms of shelf live, so a continued and constant supply is essential; (2) to celebrate James' "re-birthday" which is December 6th of each year.  So happy that we've made it 3 years and very proud of James to see the great kid he has turned into (or should I say maintained because he was pretty great before as well.. but I am admittedly very biased).

On the health front, James continues to make progress.  James had a clinic visit on 12/10 which consisted of his usual labs, a heart Echo, and EKG, an ultrasound of his lungs, and a boat load of vaccines (7).  James received his usual vaccinations as a baby/kid but those were all wiped out with his stem cell transplant and he has been unprotected and unable to get them due to his compromised immune system + all the medications he's been on.  This is round 1 of all those standard vaccines, so we'll have more to do, but really grateful that he is finally in a place where we can do this and reduce the risk of some other random illness wreaking havoc.  In summary - things are looking up with no new issues or concerns!  

As a result of the positive clinic visit we moved down on some of James' medications... completely stopping 2 and reducing a few more by 20-50%.  No timelines are ever really given on when James may be medication free but doing simple math on the weaning schedules we're hopeful and optimistic that by mid-next year James could be off most, if not all, of his medication.  Of course that's us as parents talking (not the doctors) and any hiccup could set plans back as we've experienced many times in the past.  That said, right now things are looking up and we keep making progress which is absolutely fantastic.  

In just a few days (12/6) it will be THREE YEARS since James' stem cell transplant - Happy 3rd re-birthday James!!  Each year since we have hosted a blood drive (the last 2 virtually due to COVID). 
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So with that said... the 2021 Blood Drive for James has officially begun!  I sent out an email about this a week or two ago, but the drive runs 12/1 - 12/31 across all 17 Vitalant locations and you can sign up and get details here:

We are also supporting Cal's Angels as part of the drive... first off - I know many (MANY) of you donated to the Cal's Angels Glow Walk just a month or two ago.  To be clear, we certainly aren't expecting more donations from you and want to thank you for your generosity and being amazing / helping others.

Another really cool aspect of this drive is that we are able to put giant 36x24 poster boards in every single Vitalant lobby for the month of December promoting donations to Cal's.  These poster boards have James' photo and story on them so we're hoping that the thousands of folks coming into Vitalant will see this and be inclined to make a donation.  The poster boards look like this in case you are interested:

We're hopeful to surpass the roughly 250 donors we had last year... and we have 2x the time to do it this year (the drive in 2020 was just 2 weeks long and in 2021 it's a full month).  Please spread the word as we noticed the last 2 years that many individuals came because someone in their family or a friends told them about the drive.... it's an easy way to turn 1 blood donation into 2,3,4,5... all donors also get a Free Large 1-topping Pizza and Free Pint of Ice Cream (Thanks Papa Johns and Culver's)!  Also - for any outside of the Chicago area, Vitalant is everywhere so if you go out of state just text me the location and date and I can have them manually track it.

Reminder:  If you want / are OK with your photo on the blood drive page take a picture while giving blood and either email it to contact@curiousjames.org or text it to Dan @ 630-707-1015.

In terms of how James is doing - overall things have been going REALLY well!  There are really just two things on mild/minimal concern recently:

• James keeps getting these skin rashes on his legs but they don't seem to bother him too much.  We're thinking that it's likely his GVHD acting up and have our next visit at the hospital on 12/10 so we'll get the scoop then.  They aren't too concerning right now, its more the concern of anything escalating - but we'll worry about that if it happens and I feel its unlikely.

 James is LOVING pre-school and getting so smart these days... it's fun to see him grow up and be the happy kid that he is today despite all this crap.  We're also excited that James was allowed to get the COVID vaccine, of which he just got his 2nd shot this week.  Once the CDC approves additional shots for immunocompromised kids 5-12 years old James will need one more due to his immunosuppressants etc... so we'll do that when able.

We are really looking forward to celebrating Christmas with a much healthier James this year and a much more active baby sister Maeve!  We wish you all a wonderful holiday season.  Thank you all for your love and support!!