Park Ridge Cancer Survivor Hosts Blood Drive for 21st Birthday Party

Surviving a rare form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma he was diagnosed with in 2013, Jimmy Rancich decided that hosting a blood drive at his Park Ridge home on Sunday, July 23, was how he wanted to celebrate his 21st birthday.

Jimmy's body has gone through more in the last four years than most people endure in a lifetime. Diagnosed just before his junior year at Maine South, Rancich has since received a stem cell transplant, numerous surgeries for complications stemming from his cancer treatments and more blood transfusions than he cares to remember.

But because the blood transfusions have been key in making him feel instantly better, coupled with the critical blood shortage currently sweeping the nation, Rancich was looking forward to seeing the LifeSource donor bus roll up to his house this Sunday.

"It was much harder, much tougher than I ever imagined it could have been," said Rancich of his battle. He had a rare form of non-Hodgkin's T-Cell Lymphoma, and underwent several rounds of chemotherapy, six weeks of radiation, a stem cell transplant, multiple surgeries and who knows how many blood transfusions.

"I don't even know how many I had. I just know I'm so grateful for the way it made me feel, and the way they saved my life, in a sense," Rancich said.

The blood transfusions, more than anything, he said, gave him the will to keep going.

"You feel like you've been hit by a truck. Your body aches everywhere. You're tired, you're nauseous, then you get a blood transfusion and it is replenishing and energizing, and you feel like a whole new person after one," he said.

"He's just a great person and I wish I could be more like him," Glenn Woerz, blood donor, said.

And that's this gift of life, Rancich is passing on as he celebrates another year of his own.

"Just positivity through all of it. There's definitely times where it's okay to break down and feel how much it sucks at times, feel the suck, I like to say, but then you've got to get right back up and find the positive," Rancich said.

This was the third time the Rancich family has hosted a blood drive, and officials at LifeSource say it's the first time they've ever brought its donor busses to a birthday party. More than 50 people showed up to donate.