jetBlue cares about JP

I was contacted by a lady in NY that works for jetBlue's Corporate office and she wanted to feature JP in a story about jetBlue's matching gift program. Of course I was so excited to tell her all about his walk so I sent her way more info than she needed! The story ran today and was emailed out to every employee - I have no idea how many that is, but I assume it's 10,000ish since we fly all over the US, Caribbean, and some of S. America. It makes my heart happy to think so many people could become aware of childhood cancer all because I asked jetBlue to match some money we raised.

I can't exactly post a link to the story since it's on our corporate site, but I copied it and am pasting it here. Hopefully it works.

From Blue to You: SSC walks to fight pediatric cancer

10/11 11:00am

For our From Blue to You matching gift program, Crewmember Megan Gibson rallied her fellow SSC Crewmembers to help support a cause that’s important to her: the CureSearch Walk for Children’s Cancer. Earlier this year, Megan’s young son, JP, was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and it came as a shock to the family, who went from shooting hoops together one night to the emergency room the next. You may know that there are no known causes for children’s cancer; neither genetics nor environmental factors have been linked to pediatric cancer, making prevention impossible in a time when 46 children are diagnosed with cancer in the U.S. each school day. In fact, it’s the leading cause of death by disease among children ages 1-14 years old.

 In honor of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, Megan participated in the second annual CureSearch Walk in Salt Lake City. CureSearch for Children’s Cancer is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting cancer research and spreading awareness about this disease. The foundation donates a large portion of their funds to the Children’s Oncology Group, the world’s largest organization devoted solely to pediatric cancer research, connecting thousands of leading experts in hospitals, universities, and cancer centers throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

More than 3,000 people participated in the walk, raising nearly $164,000 in total, and our JetBlue team was part of this success. Megan created the event through Community Connection and then rallied 25 of her fellow reservations coworkers to sign up for the “All for JP none for ALL” group. Together, they raised $3,265 and JetBlue contributed $1,000 to support their cause. Of note, all of the generated funds are being donated to pediatric cancer research. According to Megan, this is actually rare in cancer fundraising, since most organizations typically allot only 1% for pediatric cancer research specifically.

You can check out the team’s page here—they are still accepting donations through October 13. Great job to SSC for supporting this important cause:

Kim Chavez	Jami Newbold	Karinna Waddoups
Carlee Coon	Sheay Nielson	Steve Wilson
Derek Dangerfield	Wade Okumura	Brenda Wilson
Roseario Fernandez	Whitney Pierce	Sommer Wilson
Vickie Flint	Jennifer Smith
Megan Gibson	Anne Smith
Geo Izurieta	Christine Swim
Grace Larsen	Cami Tribe
Tristin Lopez	Traci Valadez
Brandi McMillan	Tiffany Vigil

JetBlue will match your contributions

To have JetBlue help a cause you care about, sign up for an event and register online. You can read about the matching gift program criteria here, including the type of eligible events and matching requirements. We look forward to creating change around the areas that are important to you!

Happy 3rd Birthday JP!

Josh was leaving town for work the morning of JP's big day so we had a small family celebration Sunday night. We all know I am not great at cakes but I did my best and he was so happy it had a "U" that he requested that piece. It was a pretty big piece of cake for such a small kid, but he loved every last bit of it! Ok, so he mostly just licked the frosting off and then ate a little bit of cake, but still.

Just wait until you see his actual birthday cake - we have a friend from when we lived in Cedar City (she lives in Salt Lake now too) that offered to bake his birthday cake. Naturally I accepted because, who am I kidding, I can swirl frosting on a cupcake like nobody's business but frosting an actual cake takes way more talent that I will ever have. Stay tuned!

Interim Maintenance II - Day 21

I know you're all on the edges of your seats waiting for a new post from me... And I'm guessing this post isn't the one you're looking for, am I right? Well before I can post about the ridiculously amazing walk we had with CureSearch over the weekend, you are going to have to sit through yet another post about a day at the hospital.

Josh was out of town all last week which meant I was in charge all of the time. Okay, so I'm always in charge all of the time but sometimes Josh thinks he's in charge when he's home and since I'm so good at being in charge I let him think that. Haha! I really shouldn't post late at night. Anyway, JP had labs drawn and his ANC was at 1.3 which meant he was plenty healthy for increased chemo. I always have mixed feelings when he makes counts. On the one hand, SUPER! let's get this show on the road and get one more treatment behind us, but on the other hand I almost always know when he's going to make counts because he's acting so great and happy, almost like a normal kid without cancer, and I don't want to take him in because I know he's not going to feel as awesome anymore. He acts pretty great most of the time, but I can tell a difference between him feeling "fine" and him feeling "great" if that makes sense. Other cancer moms probably know what I mean. Anyway, Day 21 fell on a day when Josh was in Philadelphia and there was literally no way he could come to treatment with us. It was the first time it was just the two of us and I was nervous! Josh usually holds JP while he gets his port accessed and, well you know how my boys are, they are like two peas in a pod and Daddy can always make anything better so I was worried that it might be a rough day for JP to not have his best bud with him. I think I was also selfishly wondering if I would be ok without Josh - he is able to be logical for me while I go off and am emotional about things and if something wasn't right or the doctors needed to have a serious conversation with me I would have been a complete mess without him. Turns out none of the above happened and JP and I were able to make it through our day pulling silly faces at each other, painting on aluminum foil, playing with Cars cars and visiting Superman and Spiderman. Phew!

The only bummer is that on Friday morning JP threw up. For the first time, might I add, since starting this awful journey. This amazing kid acts like nothing abnormal goes on in his life and that chemo ain't no thang. He honestly has never thrown up until this treatment. He is truly an amazing kiddo and we are so blessed to call him ours.