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Eight-year-old former hospital patient now collecting toys for other patients

Posted at 8:18 PM, Dec 05, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-06 00:28:09-05

LITTLETON, Colo. -- The holidays are a time for giving and paying it forward. One Littleton 8-year-old is taking both of those messages to heart. After spending more than 180 days in the hospital, and receiving donated gifts and toys, he’s now healthy and is holding a toy drive for other sick kids. 

“It means a lot to me that other kids can have toys too,” Adrian said.

“He wants the kids who are in the hospital this holiday to have all the fun he had when he was there during the holidays,” his mom, Cassidy, said. 

While gifts of Hot Wheels cars and coloring books were "fun," his diagnosis was not. Aplastic Anemia is a rare blood disorder that attacks bone marrow.

“Your blood cells and immune system fight against your bone marrow, so if it does that, you have no bone marrow,” Adrian explained. 

He needed a bone marrow transplant, which included chemotherapy and a six-month stint of isolation at home to recover. 

This year, he’s healthy and will be spending Christmas at home. He has a Christmas list but wanted to do more. So his family put up donation boxes at his school and a local church. They started filling up. 

“It’s hard to express how proud I am. It’s an incredible felling that he’d do this for other kids because he knows what it feels like,” Adrian’s mom said. 

Adrian is still accepting donations for the next two weeks until they toys are delivered to Children’s Hospital Colorado. 

Boxes are located at:

  • Coronado Elementary School, Littleton
  • Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit, Centennial
  • Revolution Martial Arts, Littleton 
  • Foothills Business Professionals, Littleton

For more information on the Be The Match bone marrow registry, head to https://bethematch.org