By Kaitlyn Connolly

In April 2014, Brian Tarantino’s eldest son Nathan—just 10 years old at the time—was diagnosed with a germ cell tumor located in the middle of his brain near the pituitary gland. “Our world was turned upside down. Our beautiful boy, who was barely a kid, had brain cancer,” said Brian.

As challenging as that news would be for any family, Brian and his wife still had to care for their younger son Owen, who was almost four. Because of the time constraints between hospital stays, Owen’s time with his mom and dad was split—one parent taking care of him during the week and one on the weekends.

“My wife was a stay-at-home mom, so it was me being the bread winner,” Brian said. “During the week I was taking his little brother to daycare, I would do my job, pick up Owen, come home and make dinner. It was like that for quite some time in 2014.”

As a child, Nathan was also diagnosed with Autism. Despite those challenges, and dealing with brain cancer, Brian said his face and demeanor would shine on the cloudiest of days.

“He was the light of our life. He would just smile and laugh and was the happiest baby in the whole world. He could make having a bad day turn out to be a great day.”

Due to the location of Nathan’s tumor, it was not able to be resected without extreme risk. They decided as a family to fight this cancer with six rounds of chemotherapy and six weeks of focalized radiation afterwards to his brain area. Nathan endured multiple blood and platelet transfusions along the way, as well as many other medical procedures.

“With his development delay, you couldn’t say to him, ‘Nathan you have cancer,’” said Brian. “He wouldn’t understand or conceptualize that. We would use terms like, ‘We’re going go to the doctor and take pictures, is that ok?’ We made it a routine, and not to say there weren’t fights and tears and emotions along the way. We had to check his cholesterol and his sugars all the time. He got to the point that he would do it himself.”

In November of 2019, the tumor started to show signs of growing again. Putting Nathan through additional testing and more intense treatment was not an option for the Tarantino family. There was no guarantee that the tumor would stop growing. In another year, you could see the signs of the tumor taking over, and by April of 2021, Nathan passed away.

“We loved him every day. He was the light of our life. I love talking about him. He’s in our house, in our pictures, on our Alexa. We see him every day”.

When the American Red Cross hosted a blood drive at Brian Tarantino’s son’s school, he finally decided it was time to give blood donations a chance.

“I always thought I should give more blood,” Brian said. “It’s not an excuse, but you get busy and don’t think about it. With this, it was almost like a lightbulb going off. The American Red Cross being at your son’s school right across the street from where you live. If you can’t make it then, then you’re never going to make time, you’re never going to do it.”

Since that initial donation in 2023, Brian says the process has become addictive. Every 56 days you’ll find him at his local American Red Cross blood center giving blood. Brian says the feeling of helping others is indescribable. While he’s selflessly given almost a gallon of blood without a thought, his actions are helping families just like his own.

Since Brian’s first blood donation a year ago, he now sees the impact of what a single donation can do for a family.

“I hope it gives someone an extension of their life,” he said. “I try to do it as unselfish as possible. But I just want to do it to keep the memory of Nathan alive and maybe deep down, I’m thanking those that did it for our son. He went through transfusions and spinal taps, and he had platelet transfusions. It’s thanking those people through those donations. I’m just thankful for anyone who donated to help extend Nathan’s life at the time.”

Tarantino’s employer, Nationwide Insurance, has been very supportive of his blood donations. As a company rule, they provide a half-day of PTO for every blood donation, up to two days a year. While the compensation is nice, Tarantino says it’s not why he continues to show up.

“I feel like I’m making a difference. Do it one time and I promise you’re going to want to donate. You’ll see the benefits of it. You’ll see the stories shown and you can read about them too online. I implore you to try and donate.”