In 1989, I took a job with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin as a nursing instructor for the recently opened Intermediate Intensive Care Unit. In the intervening years, I have been a staff nurse and educator. I’ve served on shared governance committees, participated in research and quality improvement initiatives and served on professional boards. Currently, I am a clinical educator at Children’s Hospital. My work has given me the privilege to travel to developing countries to provide much needed medical care.

I have traveled on 10 medical mission trips in the past 25 years. I have been to the state of Chiapas, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Costa Rica.  Seven of these trips were to Haiti. I spent time in small villages and in the famous slum, Cite Soleil, in the capital city, Port-au-Prince. It took a catastrophic earthquake earlier this year to reveal to the rest of the world what I learned years ago – the needs of Haiti are enormous, and the people of Haiti are beautiful, kind, gracious and deserving. (more…)

My son, Gaige, came home from school one day very sad because some kids kept telling him he had a big belly. My heart broke for my little 4 year old. At this young age, my son weighed 66.3 pounds and was 45 inches tall with a body mass index of 22.7. A normal BMI for kids my son’s age is 14.

As a mom, I truly believe we don’t see flaws in our children that others may see. I knew Gaige was bigger than most kids his age. I didn’t really see how much bigger he was. With a desire to fix the problem, I made an appointment with our pediatrician.

I discussed the teasing and my family history of hypothyroidism with our pediatrician. After testing, we found out Gaige had a normal acting thyroid, but his cholesterol level was high. Both my husband and I work in health care and understand the effects that high cholesterol could have on an adult. What would it do to our son?

We were referred to the NEW (Nutrition, Exercise and Weight Management) Kids™ Program at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin. We had our first appointment in December 2008. (more…)

On July 30, an expected 7,500 visitors from across the country will arrive in Madison to participate in the 2010 U.S. Transplant Games. The games are an Olympic-style event for athletes who have received a life-saving organ transplant of any type (kidney, liver, heart, lung, pancreas and bone marrow).

Mason is participating in the U.S. Transplant Games for the very fist time, and he is every excited! He will be competing in a number of events, including the softball throw, long jump and road race. Mason’s training for the games includes normal kid stuff – playing t-ball, riding his bike and running around – nonstop. He is a natural at anything athletic and wow, is he fast!

Mason wasn’t always a healthy kid, though. In fact, we knew before Mason was born that things weren’t quite right. He had fetal surgery to save his life. He was born with Prune Belly Syndrome, which caused kidney failure and no abdominal muscles. He also had another rare disease, Hepatoblastoma, a malignant liver tumor. He was 7 months old when it was diagnosed and he’s been in remission for 6 years. He has had 14 surgeries to date. (more…)

We all forget things, right? But what about our own children? That’s nearly impossible, isn’t it? As schedules get more hectic, multitasking has become the new way of life. This can cloud our brains, causing us to forget something very near and dear: our kids.

Between 1998 and 2009, 445 children died in the U.S. from heat stroke because they were left unattended in cars that became too hot for them to survive. More than half of those children were forgotten by a caring adult because he or she got distracted after leaving the vehicle. There are a few simple things you can do to prevent this nightmare from happening to you: (more…)

My colleagues from Project Ujima and I participated in National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, earlier this spring. A number of national events took place to let victims know what their rights are and to inspire communities to take a stance against crime victimization.

Project Ujima was invited by Wisconsin’s attorney general J.B. Van Hollen to participate in a National Crime Victims’ Rights Week ceremony at the Capitol to highlight the work we, as well as other organizations like ours do. The Project Ujima Youth Leadership Council attended the ceremony.  Following the ceremony, we were invited back to the Governor’s mansion for lunch with Wisconsin’s First Lady Jessica Doyle. We also met Governor Doyle. (more…)