Experience the Mission...Part 1

This week, I had a life-changing experience.  Even now as I sit down to write about it, I’m unsure of the words to use.  I’ve tried to tell 3 different people about the things I saw and the emotions I felt, but the words just don’t seem to do it justice.  There just aren’t words for something that impacts you in such a profound and lasting way. 

Let me set the scene:  “Experience The Mission” is a program at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas.  The Foundation of the hospital invites ten community leaders/fundraisers/parents to “experience” what happens at Cook on a daily basis through the eyes of doctors, nurses, child-life specialists, educators, patients, and their families.   Each ETM participant (that was me!) is assigned 4 rotations where you are the “shadow” of your guide for several hours. 

The event opened Wednesday night with a welcome dinner.  I was excited to get my scrubs, find out my rotations, and dive deep into the workings of the hospital.   I wasn’t expecting it to be all “Grey’s Anatomy” since we were at a Children’s hospital, but the excitement of the procedures and the rare opportunity to be behind-the-scenes filled me with adrenaline.   Attending the welcome dinner, in addition to the 10 participants, were the doctors, nurses, staff members who would be our guides.  Also attending were executives of the hospital and past-participants of “Experience The Mission”.   It became very clear to me, very quickly, that A LOT of people had set aside their personal and professional time to give to this program, and to ME as a participant.   As I began to listen to one man speak of his previous experience, I started to realize that this truly was going to be a lot more than watching surgeries, seeing different areas of the hospital, and maybe getting to hold a baby or two.   He gave great advice to us as the new participants:  leave your cell phone in the car; eat breakfast; be prepared to go home and hold your children like you’ve never held them before; truly take in this experience and cherish the amazing medical center that we have here in our backyard; and don’t be a “dropper” in surgery…make sure you “lean against the wall and slide down instead.”  

  

I was fortunate to be able to bring a friend with me for “Experience the Mission” – my fundraising partner-in-crime and dear friend, Lee Nagel, was also going through ETM this week, so it was nice to have her in the car for the ride home to joke about how silly we would look in scrubs the next day, to read over our rotation schedule, and to wonder if any of the male participants would faint during surgery. 

Early, early the next morning, we arrived back at the hospital, ready for the day ahead!   I would be spending the morning in surgery as well as shadowing a veteran Pulmonologist, who has been at Cook for 24 years.   After lunch, I would have time with my good friend, Dr. Jeff Murray, who heads the Neuro-oncology department of the Cancer center, before finishing off my day in the NICU – Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – with all those precious, preemie babies.

For her rotations, my good friend Lee would be starting in the Hematology/Oncology department – very close to Lee’s heart as a 7-year cancer survivor – before her own rotation in Surgery.  Lee’s afternoon would be spent in the Laboratory and then with a Child-Life Specialist.   (Quick side note here:  the child-life specialists play a critical role in patient care.   They calm and distract patients before complex and painful procedures; they use special toys to explain procedures to young children; and they offer opportunities for patients to just be kids and to have child-like, regular playtime, even while in the hospital.) 

My handler for the day was another good friend, Lesley.  While she normally serves in Development for the hospital Foundation, today she was the key person who would get me to each of my rotations, keep me fed so that I wouldn’t pass out, let me cry on her shoulder (which I did a lot) and, little did I know at the time, but who would also be capturing many of my experiences with words and pictures to be given back to me later. 

Lesley dropped me off in surgery with my guide for several hours, Chelsea.  Chelsea is a very-experienced Registered Nurse who educated me all about the ins-and-outs of the surgical area.   She had me popping between operating rooms so that I could see as many different surgeries as possible.  I saw a cleft pallette being repaired in a 6 year old boy, an orthopedic foot surgery (which was by-far the most gross surgery I saw all day…ugh….), an epilepsy surgery that didn’t go exactly as planned, an iliostomy on a two-month old baby, ear tube surgeries, and the very beginnings of a brain surgery, heart surgery, and eye surgery.  I was completely in awe of the amazing IMRI suite that has been built at Cook…one of only 2 in Texas.  This suite makes it possible for an MRI to be taken of a brain surgery patient DURING the surgery so that the neurosurgeon is able to detect if all of a tumor has been removed prior to finishing.  Truly amazing!   My friend, Lee, was able to see a complex brain surgery take place later in the day in the IMRI suite and has the pictures to prove it!  (yuck!)

I left my surgery rotation surprised at how very little blood there actually is; how quiet and calm the surgical areas are (so unlike television); how beautiful some of the operating rooms were – big windows and natural light – not that the patient cares probably, but its nice for the hardworking staff to see the sun; and in awe of the complex “dance” that the surgical teams do all day long: the big board where they track everything happening; the teams of people who move back and forth between patients all day long; the staff members who keep everything so clean, so well-organized.  The doctors were all so kind to welcome us into their surgeries and to take the time to explain procedures and allow us to get up-close, look through their microscopes and really see inside the bodies they were working on. 

But, most of the time while I was watching, I was thinking about those patient’s families, sitting out in the waiting room, wondering what was happening with their child and I was feeling guilty for being in there when that is the place they would most want to be.

I’ve been that THAT mom.  My son had surgery when he was six-months-old.  They carried him away from me to take him, give him anesthesia, and operate on him, while I had to sit in a waiting room and wonder what was happening.   It’s a horrible, horrible feeling.   So, while I was honored and in awe of all the complexities that I was allowed to be part of in the surgical areas, my heart was with those families and wanting to run out of the room and tell them that you have no idea of what amazing people are in there with your child right now.    They are holding her hand, and saying only good things above her, and working so hard to make sure she’ll come right back to you. 

When my friend Lesley came to pick me up from surgery and take me to my next rotation, she was wise to sit me down for a few minutes of “down time” before we moved on.   I needed to catch my breath and take it all in.  I had started the day just hoping that I wouldn’t pass out if I saw a lot of blood, but never imagined the complex emotions that would start seeping in so quickly.   Thankfully, Lesley had tissues, and I would need a lot of them, as my day was just getting started.  

More tomorrow...