Today I write to ask for your thoughts and prayers as one of my beloved "old" patients from the DC area goes to surgery. She is a 3.5 year old little girl with a rare heart disorder, and she has been living at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia for the past ~ 6 months waiting on a heart transplant. I just received word that the "perfect" heart has become available, and she will be in surgery for the next half-day or so. Her family is the most amazing, dedicated, loving family I have ever seen ... in fact, pasted below is an email I wrote to them as I travelled across the country to my new duty station last summer - you can see the level of respect I have for them from the email. They have been incredibly influential in my life, and now I ask that everyone reading this blog take a moment to think about the little girl with the weak heart and her family who has sacrificed so much to get her where she is today.
Her mother and father have blogs - they are highly recommended and will reveal the strength of this wonderful family!
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Here's my email from Summer 2008 to the family:
I meant to make that "first name" deal with you when I saw you this week, but with all the craziness, it slipped my mind. But it's definitely a deal! Now that I'm officially not the kids' pediatrician anymore, I think dropping the formality is completely appropriate. :) I might have a little difficulty with it at first, and in fact had some hesitancy in writing your names at the beginning of this email, but ..... I'm getting more and more used to it by the second!!!
It seems to me that at the culmination of my residency at Walter Reed, there have been a lot of people outlining what "I've" done for "them". In many different arenas, this one-sided view of the tour has been apparent: my residency director introducing me with my (limited) residency accomplishments at the end-of-the-year party, other patients coming into clinic and telling me how their kids have changed (mostly in a good way!) since I've been their doctor, my mentor discussing personal milestones in my final counseling. But what seems to have been forgotten in large part is how "everyone" has helped "me", how my colleagues, patients, and friends have changed MY life and made me a better person, pediatrician, and mother. This email seeks to remedy this deficiency.
I came into residency three years ago not really knowing which way was up. (Seriously!) And that first intern year didn't help much, either. It was exhausting, annoying, and taxing from a personal, emotional, professional, and medical standpoint. You knew me during that trying time (at least after Lauren was born in January), and you probably saw right through some of my attempts to understand Lauren's condition (which was clearly over my head). What I remember of you during that academic year was a family of amazing strength and resilience, two parents who were willing to sacrifice anything for their children, one little girl who just refused to give up, and two siblings who selflessly gave up many of their own wants and desires when their sister was sick.
My admiration for the family grew during my second academic year, when two important things happened: one, I spent a morning hanging out with the kids at your home, and, second, Lauren tried really hard to die. The "morning at your house" was revealing because it gave me a glimpse into the challenges of your home life (and just how busy it could be). Lauren's septic shock episode taught me what the role of the general pediatrician should be in cases when critically ill patients are transferred to another hospital. You may not have seen it on my face at the time, but I was totally winging it that evening and the remainder of the week. I didn't know what I was supposed to do as Lauren had no blood pressure and was getting loaded up in the ambulance for Children's. I knew that she would be well-cared-for by the medical personnel onboard, but I also realized that you two - as usual - were thinking of and worrying about her without regard to your own needs. Thus, the McDonald's, complete with a regular coke. :) My goal was just to be there for you that night - for translation, for kleenex, for sustenance, for whatever - and for one of the first times in my residency, my instinct and emotion rather than my medical knowledge was the driving factor.
By the time my third year rolled around, I knew that you were a very, very special family. As my own child came into the world, I began to understand the challenges that you always so gracefully negotiated as parents. From you, I learned about asking for help when a child's behavior has become unmanageable, and just how hard asking for help can be. I learned firsthand about the emotional turmoil of pregnancy and childbirth, and tried to put myself in your shoes to understand how you felt when Lauren was born so sick after an essentially uncomplicated pregnancy. I learned about how a husband and wife's relationship changes with the addition of a little one to the family, and you taught me to roll with the punches, laugh a lot, smile a lot, and focus on the positive as far as my marriage was concerned. There has been a lot that YOU have given ME in the last year.
I didn't realize - truly - what an effect your family has had on my life and my training until the Defining Moments presentation a few months back at your church. I was thrilled, elated, jubilant to be there for such a special and meaningful event! I'm sure you couldn't see me in the audience while you were presenting, but I was pretty much bawling. I was so proud of you for telling Lauren's story in the way that you did and so happy to have had the privilege of working with such an amazingly strong family. (PS My mom was crying too, and she absolutely loved the performance as wel!) It was at "Defining Moments" that I realized that while Lauren's birth was a defining moment in your life, it was really a defining moment in my life as well. More appropriately, perhaps I could describe the five of you as "Defining People" in my life - people who have made me stronger, better, and more loving in some big or small way, and people who will remain in my memories forever and ever.
I haven't been too sad to leave Walter Reed. It's been a tough three-year tour for lots of reasons. But as I drove home from work for the last time, I finally became a bit nostalgic. No, I wasn't sad to leave the 80-hour work weeks. No, I wasn't sad to leave the greasy cafeteria food. I wasn't sad to leave the politics of Walter Reed medicine. No, I wasn't even sad to leave the uncomfortable call room mattresses. :) But I WAS sad to know that I would be leaving some wonderful patients and families who have influenced me in ways that I could not have imagined three years ago. Your family is #1 on the influential list!
So - thank you. Thank you for the superior example you have set for my own parenting and my own family. Thank you for not noticing (or at least not letting on that you noticed) my cluelessness during that first intern year, and also during that night that Lauren went to Children's. Thank you for teaching me to ask for help when its necessary, and for asking all of the "hard" questions - you have really made me think! Thank you for showing me that even with three kids, horrible parking, a feeding tube backpack, and some serious temper tantrums, a single parent CAN be on time (or early) for every single appointment and CAN have a smile on his/her face. And finally, thank you for the wonderful book you gave me last week; it will remain in my office until I am too old and gray to have a practice anymore, as a reminder of why I am in this field and why I love taking care of kids and their families. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything!
I will think of you often during my tour at Fort Bliss. I can only hope that we can keep in touch - by email, phone, carrier pigeon, or otherwise - and continue to build the friendship that commenced that moment in January 2006.
I meant to make that "first name" deal with you when I saw you this week, but with all the craziness, it slipped my mind. But it's definitely a deal! Now that I'm officially not the kids' pediatrician anymore, I think dropping the formality is completely appropriate. :) I might have a little difficulty with it at first, and in fact had some hesitancy in writing your names at the beginning of this email, but ..... I'm getting more and more used to it by the second!!!
It seems to me that at the culmination of my residency at Walter Reed, there have been a lot of people outlining what "I've" done for "them". In many different arenas, this one-sided view of the tour has been apparent: my residency director introducing me with my (limited) residency accomplishments at the end-of-the-year party, other patients coming into clinic and telling me how their kids have changed (mostly in a good way!) since I've been their doctor, my mentor discussing personal milestones in my final counseling. But what seems to have been forgotten in large part is how "everyone" has helped "me", how my colleagues, patients, and friends have changed MY life and made me a better person, pediatrician, and mother. This email seeks to remedy this deficiency.
I came into residency three years ago not really knowing which way was up. (Seriously!) And that first intern year didn't help much, either. It was exhausting, annoying, and taxing from a personal, emotional, professional, and medical standpoint. You knew me during that trying time (at least after Lauren was born in January), and you probably saw right through some of my attempts to understand Lauren's condition (which was clearly over my head). What I remember of you during that academic year was a family of amazing strength and resilience, two parents who were willing to sacrifice anything for their children, one little girl who just refused to give up, and two siblings who selflessly gave up many of their own wants and desires when their sister was sick.
My admiration for the family grew during my second academic year, when two important things happened: one, I spent a morning hanging out with the kids at your home, and, second, Lauren tried really hard to die. The "morning at your house" was revealing because it gave me a glimpse into the challenges of your home life (and just how busy it could be). Lauren's septic shock episode taught me what the role of the general pediatrician should be in cases when critically ill patients are transferred to another hospital. You may not have seen it on my face at the time, but I was totally winging it that evening and the remainder of the week. I didn't know what I was supposed to do as Lauren had no blood pressure and was getting loaded up in the ambulance for Children's. I knew that she would be well-cared-for by the medical personnel onboard, but I also realized that you two - as usual - were thinking of and worrying about her without regard to your own needs. Thus, the McDonald's, complete with a regular coke. :) My goal was just to be there for you that night - for translation, for kleenex, for sustenance, for whatever - and for one of the first times in my residency, my instinct and emotion rather than my medical knowledge was the driving factor.
By the time my third year rolled around, I knew that you were a very, very special family. As my own child came into the world, I began to understand the challenges that you always so gracefully negotiated as parents. From you, I learned about asking for help when a child's behavior has become unmanageable, and just how hard asking for help can be. I learned firsthand about the emotional turmoil of pregnancy and childbirth, and tried to put myself in your shoes to understand how you felt when Lauren was born so sick after an essentially uncomplicated pregnancy. I learned about how a husband and wife's relationship changes with the addition of a little one to the family, and you taught me to roll with the punches, laugh a lot, smile a lot, and focus on the positive as far as my marriage was concerned. There has been a lot that YOU have given ME in the last year.
I didn't realize - truly - what an effect your family has had on my life and my training until the Defining Moments presentation a few months back at your church. I was thrilled, elated, jubilant to be there for such a special and meaningful event! I'm sure you couldn't see me in the audience while you were presenting, but I was pretty much bawling. I was so proud of you for telling Lauren's story in the way that you did and so happy to have had the privilege of working with such an amazingly strong family. (PS My mom was crying too, and she absolutely loved the performance as wel!) It was at "Defining Moments" that I realized that while Lauren's birth was a defining moment in your life, it was really a defining moment in my life as well. More appropriately, perhaps I could describe the five of you as "Defining People" in my life - people who have made me stronger, better, and more loving in some big or small way, and people who will remain in my memories forever and ever.
I haven't been too sad to leave Walter Reed. It's been a tough three-year tour for lots of reasons. But as I drove home from work for the last time, I finally became a bit nostalgic. No, I wasn't sad to leave the 80-hour work weeks. No, I wasn't sad to leave the greasy cafeteria food. I wasn't sad to leave the politics of Walter Reed medicine. No, I wasn't even sad to leave the uncomfortable call room mattresses. :) But I WAS sad to know that I would be leaving some wonderful patients and families who have influenced me in ways that I could not have imagined three years ago. Your family is #1 on the influential list!
So - thank you. Thank you for the superior example you have set for my own parenting and my own family. Thank you for not noticing (or at least not letting on that you noticed) my cluelessness during that first intern year, and also during that night that Lauren went to Children's. Thank you for teaching me to ask for help when its necessary, and for asking all of the "hard" questions - you have really made me think! Thank you for showing me that even with three kids, horrible parking, a feeding tube backpack, and some serious temper tantrums, a single parent CAN be on time (or early) for every single appointment and CAN have a smile on his/her face. And finally, thank you for the wonderful book you gave me last week; it will remain in my office until I am too old and gray to have a practice anymore, as a reminder of why I am in this field and why I love taking care of kids and their families. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything!
I will think of you often during my tour at Fort Bliss. I can only hope that we can keep in touch - by email, phone, carrier pigeon, or otherwise - and continue to build the friendship that commenced that moment in January 2006.
Go Lauren!! Congratulations on getting a heart - we're all thinking about you!
ReplyDeleteGood luck - you're in my prayers tonight ...
Quick update .... I just had a long chat with Tim and Cristi, and apparently Lauren is doing splendid. She has been extubated (taken off the ventilator), which is a HUGE accomplishment just a few hours after surgery! Most importantly, Tim and Cristi seem to be in good spirits. They understand that her surgery is just the first step in a long stairway, but they are so grateful and excited about her progress! :)
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