To Parents Flying Solo With Their St. Jude Kid During COVID-19
This year must have been one of the hardest St. Jude families have ever had to endure.
Not only are they dealing with their child s life potentially hanging in the balance due to childhood cancer, but now they even have to worry about their other children that don t have cancer potentially becoming infected with the coronavirus. Imagine dealing with that kind of anxiety every single day. For St. Jude families, that s been their life ever since the pandemic began.
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It s an unimaginable time when you re solely focusing on getting your child better from cancer, but combining it with the threat of COVID-19? Unfathomable. The St. Jude families, especially the moms and dads, are true inspirations. The strength they have and the hope and faith they ve placed in the doctors and nurses during this time is, truly, a beautiful thing.
One of the scariest feelings for a kid is the thought that they could be sick. Not knowing when or if you will get better can be horrifying. That s why St. Jude goes out of their way to not make them feel like they re sick in a hospital.
This year, we got a package from St. Jude and in the box was a pen with a strange shape on the end. I looked at it for a minute and then it reminded me what it was. On the end of the pen was the outline of a wagon.
Now, if you ve never been to St. Jude, you might not know that wagon has a lot of significance for that hospital.
Dierks Bentley always brings his guitar with him when he visits the St. Jude Children s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. Really, he says he should be bringing a guitar case full of tissues. You go to St. Jude and you bring a guitar thinking you’re gonna help raise some spirits and make people feel better, Bentley explains to Taste of Country, and you end up walking out of there just crying because the kids are so much stronger than you are.
The singer echoes dozens of other artists who say St. Jude is a happy place. The doctors and staff strive to make sure the smallest details are attended to. Even the chef in the Kaye Kafe takes personalized orders when he can, occasionally turning them into new menu items. One former patient remembered how he d inject gummy bears with electrolytes, so vitamins tasted like candy.
They Say St. Jude Is a Happy Place, But See for Yourself
Distance and a pandemic may be keeping you from walking the halls of St. Jude, but a new virtual tour brings the experience to you. Explore the clinics, medicine rooms and social areas while you hear from former patients who are still spreading the We Won t Stop message.
The new, 360-degree St. Jude Virtual Tour allows you to discover everything that makes St. Jude Children s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn., remarkable. During a normal year, the ALSAC team (the St. Jude fundraising arm) leads more than 800 tours, offering some background about why an actor chose to make building the hospital his life s mission while exploring areas like Kay Cafe, founder Danny Thomas lucky nose and the ABCs of Cancer wall.