Amplatz Children’s Hospital Nurses Encourage Bravery in Kids Fighting Cancer

Nat's white coat ceremony  11-17-07 009At the end of a work day, like many teachers, I am emotionally exhausted. Students come to my door in tears filled with worry about family members battling cancer, failed chemistry tests, and the big bully in the lunchroom. Weary from my own my health battles, I often wonder how I will find the energy to keep giving. Then I receive a surprise call from my daughter in Minneapolis, a pediatrician, who recounts her work week at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital.

What could be more discouraging than children battling an evil disease that destroys their dreams? Rich, poor, black, white, Muslim, Jew, cancer does not discriminate. No one grows up on easy street anymore.

When U of M Amplatz Children’s Hospital opened in 2011, it was designed to help kids heal as painlessly as possible by offering patient and family centered care. Staff wear colorful – orange, magenta, turquoise – scrubs and the bright, customized private rooms are spacious enough to allow families to stay to help the healing process.

The positive energy of the place can be seen in nurses of  Unit 5, who took time before and after hours to shoot a video with nearly 70 staff members dancing to « Brave » by Sara Bareilles, as a way of encouraging their patients.

“We know these kids, know their stories and what they’ve been through,” the nurses say, “but for other people to see how amazing they are and to be affected in the same way just means so much to them, and we hope it continues to inspire other kids.”

Their little video went viral with over 300,000 viewers. Our daughter abhors the limelight, so she ducked during the filming, but she jumped right on the band wagon promoting it.

When Nathalie’s aunt asked for ideas for birthday and Christmas gifts, Nat suggested that in lieu of gifts, we could make donations to Toys-for-Tots , or to Make a Wish, which grants wishes for kids with cancer and other life threatening illnesses.

“A lot of the kids I take care of have had wishes granted by Make-a-Wish, which is a big deal for them and their families,” Nat says.

To the doctors, nurses, families, and children at Amplatz and elsewhere fighting in the face of a despairing disease, as we say in France, « Bon Courage ! »

To my dear daughter, Happy Birthday! May you find the strength to do what you do best : easing children’s pain, calming distraught parents, and encouraging co workers.              .

To the rest of us who think we are weary from our job raising children, think again. We share a privileged role. Whether we are helping kids string together words one syllable at time or battle disease cell by cell, like the Amplatz’s staff implore each of us – teachers, coaches, counselors, parents and grandparents – take time to hug a kid today.

« Be courageous, be brave, be strong

Stay fighting, stay positive, stay courageous

Support the fighters, admire the survivors, honor the taken

Never ever give up hope»

Children are priceless. Each day is a gift. Kindness costs nothing. Positivity perpetuates. Hope prevails.

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Sending Bon Courage from Switzerland for People Living in Pain

A recent study by the Institute of Medicine estimated that at a cost of $635 billion, 116 million American adults suffer from chronic pain, which is greater than the total of those afflicted with heart disease, cancer and diabetes combined.

I am one of them.

And that’s only in the USA, but pain is indiscriminate. It crosses national boundaries, economic borders and ethnic lines.

Pain is a strange bedfellow. When you are in pain, you can’t focus on anything else, but once it subsides, it is difficult to perceive exactly what it felt like.

Whether you suffer from ankle sprain, knee strain, back pain, brain drain,
Bladder, blood, bone, breast or one of the hundreds of cancer,
Headache, stomach ache, toothache, earache, or any body part ache
Arthritis, bursitis, colitis, encephalomyelitis
Polymyalgia, fibromyalgia, neuralgia or any of the algias
Multiple sclerosis, dermatomyositis, sarcoïdosis
Or one of the umpteen syndromes,
Whatever the name, no matter the ailment,
Pain becomes your partner.

Winter accentuates the pain; every cells aches.  The cold damp seeps into my bones. Viruses proliferate, bacteria run wild, and influenzas rampage.  I want to pull a blanket over my head and hibernate until spring.

Yet I roll out of bed every morning. I move. One. Step. Forward.

Chronic pain may subside temporarily, but it comes back to haunt you. Over time it wears down resistance, breaks spirit, zaps energy, steals joy, robs the soul.

Pain makes you set your jaw; your eyes grow falsely bright with anxiety. How long will it last? How can I endure the next hour of work? What can I do to minimize the intensity?

Pain interrupts the best-laid plans and interferes with long held dreams. Pain rules.

What do fighters do when they can’t fight back?

Take a time out. Return to your corner. Close the shutters. Stop of the noise. Rest up.

Give into the burning, stabbing, searing spasms. « Time out » is especially difficult for old athletes, trained to suck it up and get on with it. But as my body screams, I shut out society. I retreat to a dark, quiet room and let the douleur wash over me, surround me, embalm me. And I look to others for inspiration.

Like my eighty-year-old dad, who after his fourth surgery last year, willed himself to sit straight and raise dumb bells to strengthen shoulder muscles. He lifted the same two-pound weights my grandfather hoisted when his legs grew too shaky to stand from Parkinson disease. Or my brothers-in-law who battled back from heart operations without missing a beat.

I look to my daughter, an intern longing for a day off, yet working 13-hour shifts 24/7, because like all doctors, she knows that chronically ill children never get  a holiday.

Though my body may be broken and my spirit weary, I get by- With a Little Help From My Friends

From the cozy comfort of my bed, I strum my guitar, sing off tune, read a book, write a letter, say a prayer; I know firsthand.

That, which does not kill me, makes me stronger. – Nietzsche

And I am as tough as they come.

Guest Post: Staying in the Race

 

 

Kathy Pooler

Kathy Pooler

 

I am honored to feature fellow writer and Dan Blank’s Build Your Author Platform course classmate, Kathleen Pooler as a guest blogger this week. She writes about how faith and hope,  family and friends helped her stay on the course in her battle against cancer.  She is inspirational.

Staying in the Race

“THE ONLY WAY OF DISCOVERING THE LIMITS OF THE POSSIBLE IS TO VENTURE A LITTLE WAY PAST THEM INTO THE IMPOSSIBLE.” Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future.

On a picture-perfect sunny, blazing October morning in Eastern New York State, along the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers, I had the thrill of following my daughter, Leigh Ann, as she ran her first marathon. Grandsons, Jacob,5 and Ethan,4, played a key role in this effort as they held up their homemade “Go Mommy Go and “You Can Do It” posters. When she reached the finish line four hours and nineteen minutes later, Jacob and Ethan joined her in crossing over. Her message on Facebook was “a great support system can get one through what once seemed impossible.”

My marathon was a diagnosis of Stage Four Non Hodgkin Lymphoma on Christmas Eve, 1996. After dealing with the shock of the diagnosis, I had to learn how to be a patient, handing in my stethoscope for a hospital gown and two years of intense chemotherapy, radiation and a stem cell transplant. I was in training for the battle of my life and for my life. I cried, I prayed, I let my family and friends rub my feet and make me meals, I raged until one day, I just yelled at God,

“You are the great Miracle-maker so make me a miracle. Heal me so I can dance at my daughter’s wedding and hug my grand-kids. Let me see my son find his way. Give me hope for better days.”

Then before my stem cell transplant, I sat down to write a list of positive visualizations~ attending  my friend’s wedding, traveling to Missouri and Wisconsin to visit friends, dancing at my niece’s wedding with hair and going back to work as a nurse practitioner.

And every single wish came true.

Dealing with illness is every bit like a marathon. In the midst of a diagnosis, whether it be an acute condition like cancer or a chronic condition like an autoimmune disorder, health seems like an impossible dream, an amazing feat.

Illness requires the ongoing support of medical professionals, family and friends. One has to learn how to be a patient, to listen to the medical experts while still maintaining a semblance of independence and normalcy. There are many hurdles and setbacks along the way. When a runner “hits a wall”, she is told to keep working past it much like a person with a diagnosis needs to keep working past the hurdles and setbacks of medication side effects or disease exacerbation’s. In a marathon, each participant competes against herself, striving for her own personal best. A person with a diagnosis needs to dig deeply within herself to find her own inner strength to fight the battle. Both runners and people with illnesses have to pace themselves so they can last in the long haul.

I have been in remission since 1998.

For me, the power of hope through my faith in God helped me to stay in the race and cross the finish line.

How do you stay in the race?

 

Kathleen Pooler is a Family Nurse Practitioner and writer from eastern New York State, at the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains. She lives on a 135-acre farm where her husband, Wayne, grows organic vegetables and sells them at local farmer’s markets. She is a very grateful cancer survivor who is writing a memoir about how the power of hope through her faith in God helped her to climb out of the abyss of her life’s challenges~ divorce, single parenting, alcoholic son, cancer and heart failure~ to find a life of peace and joy. She believes that hope matters and that we are all enriched when we share our stories of hope.

You may visit Kathy at her blog: Write On~Random Thoughts About Writing and Life from a Memoir Writer http://krpooler.com

Twitter: @kathypooler

Facebook: Kathleen Pooler

LinkedIn: Kathleen Pooler

Email: kpooler63@gmail.com