Giving Tuesday 2018

Giving Tuesday 2018 starts with a picture:

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so what words would you use to describe this room? Imagine being a child, how would you feel walking into this room? What comforts do you see in this room for a child who is feeling scared, alone, worried, or sad? How would you feel if I told you that for the next 8 hours, this room would be a place that you couldn't leave?

Now what if I told you that this is an outpatient treatment room at a children's hospital? 

My first impression of this room goes along with words like "heavy", "depressing", "discouraging", and "boring". In order to "win" a trip to this room, I had already failed other treatments to get my Crohn's Disease under control, so there was already this feeling of having been defeated. Now, I was going to start a new IV treatment, where the potential for serious reactions meant that it had to be done in a carefully monitored environment. It was so carefully monitored, that for the duration of the treatment, you need to pretty much stay in your chair, with the only distractions other than medical equipment being the items you brought with you that day. These were the rooms where I was started on Remicade treatments, and after failing Remicade, received on-going iron infusions. This is the room where I sat wondering how this treatment would make me feel, if it would be helpful, what reactions I would experience from it, and plenty of more questions. This is the room where up to 6 other patients are receiving their own IV treatments, but you can often tell that they too, are just as worried and feeling the weight of the world on their heads. This is the room where you often find out whether you are responding to the treatments. This is one of those rooms that you'll likely remember for a very long time to come.

As most of you know, I've spent A LOT of time at Sick Kids Hospital in various departments for my ever-growing list of medical challenges. I've had a lot of opportunity to compare other areas of the hospital with this area, and really, there is no comparison - this is one of the areas of the hospital that is in desperate need of an update. Unfortunately, this is also one of the areas of the hospital that is severely under-funded within the hospital's budget, with the majority of the general fundraising going to help other areas of priority. The result are these rooms where the environment does little to help lift, engage and support the patients who use them.

This Giving Tuesday, I'm asking once again for your help to make my dream of child-friendly outpatient treatment rooms come true. These rooms should help to encourage healing, give hope, lift the spirits, distract from the worries, and inspire others. Jacob's Healing Rooms project at Sick Kids hospital will help to make treatment day better for all of those patients who will use one of these rooms in the future. Your generous donations will help to purchase materials such as covers for the awful lights, bubble tube machines, a fresh coat of paint (in a different institutional color!), as well as electronic gaming machines that will hopefully allow patients to play together as a way of building peer support.

I'm closing in on my goal, $42,000 out of $60,000 raised so far, but I need your help to turn my wish into reality. Please consider making a donation today to Jacob's Healing Rooms project at Sick Kids. Together we can make a huge difference in the lives of kids who are fighting for better days. Together we can make treatment day a bit less scary and depressing. Together we can change the whole treatment experience.

To donate: https://www.sickkidsdonations.com/registrant/FundraisingPage.aspx?RegistrationID=3641076

THANK YOU!