The day Lydia was born, Dan met me after 3 job interviews. The “we regret to inform you” news fell heavy but flat somewhere after “Your baby has Down Syndrome,” and, “your baby has 4 congenital heart defects & will need open heart surgery.” With no future job prospects, we soon faced Dan’s fellowship & our insurance coming to an end within just months, all with our daughter requiring life-saving surgery. It was a frantic time. My prayers were anguished; desperate; unceasing. They were sad, raging, mortal prayers, but somehow heard. Two months before Lydia’s surgery, Dan started full-time at Primary Children’s Hospital. It was, by no exaggeration, a miracle for our family on multiple levels. A witness of a very patient, Seeing God.
A couple of actual years, but a lifetime of healthcare (personal & professional) experience later, Dan applied for a different position within Primary’s (administration, oncology). At this juncture, I felt something I never felt before regarding his career: deep personal investment. Things were different. This was not just another job in a field we had long considered from afar. This was a job in a field we were intimately entangled with. These were our people—both caregivers & patients. Especially patients. My feed, every day, is full of warriors w/ connections to children’s hospitals. These are our friends. We know their stories before and after the hospital. This is OUR story.
So when he said yes, I said yes, too. Emphatically. I knew that this new job of his would be hard, but I don’t think there’s a cause closer to our hearts or more worth a fight.
Primary Children’s just opened a new campus. Because of Dan’s roles, he had opportunities to help design parts of it. While my greatest wish for you is that your children never have to visit, please know that if they do, great love was put into it—and walks into it—for you and your precious kids, every day.