#apintforkim • Blood drive gives what money can't buy: Time
Kim Sandford has changed her family's perspective on blood and on love.
As a patient who battled cancer in her ovary, appendix, thyroid and bones, she's received dozens of transfusions and relied on blood from unknown donors to keep her alive.
As a wife and mother raising two boys, she's taken the time that blood has given her and filled it with moments.
She's walked her sons to school, posed with the Stanley Cup trophy, hosted sleepovers complete with swimming, basketball and Nerf-gun battles, taken yearly family trips to the Bahamas, listened to the struggles of friends, lived her life as a "love revolution" and provided the simple comfort that comes from baking cookies.
But now time for Sandford, 49, is coming to a close. The Naperville woman is in hospice care after doctors told her there was nothing else they could do.
As she lives her final days, Sandford is again changing perspectives on blood and love - this time in a broader way.
With the help of her sisters, Kristyn Jo Benedyk and Kathleen Fuglsang, Sandford has become the namesake of a blood drive with a goal of reaching 100,000 pints by the end of the year.
The drive, #apintforkim, is not a fundraiser, and it's not about Sandford, she and her family say.
It's about saving lives of cancer patients, many of whom need donated blood while undergoing chemotherapy. It's about showing love instead of hiding it away. And it's about paying it forward.
"People comment to me that they are amazed that I am thinking about others and how to give back during a time like this," Sandford said in a written message shared by her sisters. "But I feel grateful that I can take what I have been through and use it as a force to create good."
Blood gives time
Already in Sandford's network of friends and family, roughly 50 people across the country have donated blood in her name.
But #apintforkim is set to take off Sunday, March 8, when her supporters will host a blood drive through Versiti from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Iron Gate Motor Condos, 2228 W. Ferry Road, Naperville. A link to sign up is available at www.facebook.com/apintforkim.
Sandford's relatives are encouraging everyone to give blood at this drive - or whenever they are able - as a way to provide red blood cells, platelets and plasma, lifesaving liquids cancer patients and others need while receiving treatment.
Those who donate outside of the official drive can use the hashtag #apintforkim on Facebook or Instagram "so we can see and thank you!" her relatives wrote on Facebook.
The idea that one donation of blood can save three lives is often stated, but the reality of what those lives mean to those who love them rarely sinks in, Sandford's supporters say.
"These blood donations, they give cancer patients a gift that no amount of money or fundraising can buy - time," Benedyk said. "More time with the people they love."
'Faith and hope'
Sandford's time undergoing cancer treatments began in 2012, and it came after a life already filled with accomplishments and connections.
She was the first person in her family to go to college, and she graduated from the University of Iowa in 1992. She became an accountant for her family's office furniture business, a talented designer whose home designs were featured in print and TV ads, a friend known for her wit and selflessness, a wife to husband Rob Sandford and a mom to Ricky, 13, and JD, 11.
She was diagnosed with a Krukenberg tumor on her ovary and with appendix cancer, which Benedyk describes on a CaringBridge profile set up to tell Sandford's story as a "one-in-a-million combination of two different types of cancers."
Ricky was about to start kindergarten at the time, and she decided to undergo surgery.
She had a procedure in July 2012 called hyperthermic intraperitoneal chemotherapy, or HIPEC, which involves surgically removing tumors and bathing the abdominal cavity with a heated chemotherapy solution to attack remaining cancer cells.
In what her sisters call a typical show of Sandford's strength and determination, she was home from the hospital weeks later - in time to walk Ricky to his first day of kindergarten.
"She has taught all of us what it means to fight for what matters to you," Fuglsang said. "And to choose faith and hope rather than defeat."
Problem is, the cancer came back. And then it came back again.
In November 2017, Sandford had surgery for thyroid cancer. And in May 2018, she was told her original appendix cancer had spread to her bones in a rare situation that would call for new treatments. By this January, though, doctors had tried everything and the cancer wasn't cured.
Sandford, who has received much of her treatment at Edward Hospital in Naperville, was in the hospital the entire month of January. During that month alone, she received more than 40 blood and platelet transfusions.
One day during that stay, she remembers waking up after a procedure and experiencing a moment of clarity.
"I started crying. I was so humbled and overcome with joy that there were people out there who were giving and selfless enough to donate the blood that went to saving my life," Sandford said in her written message. "It made me realize what a really big deal it is to give blood. It doesn't take time or money, but it does take a caring personality and the desire to be selfless."
#apintforkim
Soon, the realization about the value of blood donation morphed into a campaign Benedyk called #apintforkim, despite Sandford's own reservations about the effort bearing her name.
Her husband of 23 years reassured her, saying the name allows his wife's personality, her love for others and her story to inspire people.
"It isn't until you are in the position where you or someone you know needs blood that you really start to think about this," he said. "The simple act of donating blood can truly be the thing that saves someone's life."
The move to keep Sandford's persona in the movement's name is working.
Versiti has added staff and expanded the number of donor slots available for the #apintforkim drive, as 205 people had signed up to donate as of Thursday.
"It makes me believe that what I have been through has happened for a reason," Sandford said, "and that reason is to inspire people to change the way they think about their lives, to approach each day with empathy and kindness and to pay attention to their own health."
Sandford's family sees a future for #apintforkim as an annual gathering, a way to lift up her boys and fill them with their mother's spirit, grace and compassion.
"I want this event to be a celebration of what is possible when you choose selflessness," Benedyk said, "the way that their mom has."
How to give
What: A Pint for Kim Blood Drive
When: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 8
Where: Iron Gate Motor Condos, 2228 W. Ferry Road, Naperville
Who: Hosted by Versiti in honor of Kim Sandford of Naperville
Info: Visit
facebook.com/apintforKim/ to find a link to schedule an appointment. Walk-ins will be accepted. If unable to attend, call (630) 428-3632 to schedule an appointment at Versiti’s Naperville donation center at 1297 S. Naper Blvd.Share: If donating outside of the drive, use the hashtag #apintforkim on Facebook or Instagram to join the effort to reach 100,000 pints by the end of the year.