A Special Place

“Bye hospital, I lub you.” These are the words that Hazel softly uttered as we rounded the corner on Livingston Avenue and passed the Nationwide Children’s Hospital sign. I quietly fought back tears as the irony of the situation settled deep into my psyche. Her voice dripped with a level of sincerity that I do not often hear from adults – let alone a two-year old – and while she was smiling as she said it, I could hear the gentle sadness that accompanied the phrase. Her intentions were genuine; she does love that hospital and the people that work within its walls. She doesn’t love the mini-marathons of blood tests, accessing and deaccessing her port, chemo drips, belly palpation, and lumbar punctures – the actual fight against cancer. But she does love the hospital for what it represents: hope, life, vitality, and the fight for good.

Nationwide Children’s Hospital is a special, almost spiritual place, and it holds a hallowed position in my family’s hearts. As soon as you lay eyes on this facility, you can tell something is different about it. From the outside the 12 stories of glass windows loom high above the surrounding buildings in the Columbus skyline, appearing cold, foreboding, and intimidating were it not for the light blue and orange butterfly logo that is delicately perched on the uppermost floor. The campus sprawls over several city blocks and is always bustling at any time during the day or night. Gaggles of world-renowned surgeons, doctors, researchers, and nurses hustle along the flower-lined concrete corridors with purpose; focused on an invisible goal that only they can see. The landscaping is beautiful, incorporating a variety of vibrantly colored flowers and exotic grasses that add light to the otherwise bland city landscape that surrounds it.

The main building sits adjacent a park replete with bright red and blue playground structures, swings, and picnic tables. Green metal benches are spaced periodically along the perimeter and are nearly always filled. Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers; all families in the midst of their own personal stories, use these outside spaces as a place of respite from the realities that exist mere feet away inside the doors of the hospital.

The hope is that you never have to enter that hospital, but if you do, what greets you is nothing short of spectacular. The interior is cheerful, with walls featuring murals of various nature scenes including frogs, turtles, grasshoppers, and butterflies; floors that use wavy, colored paths to help guide you through the facility depending on department. Colorful bird figurines are suspended from the ceilings, chirping as you pass underneath and trip their electronic motion sensors. As you walk down the hallways you are greeted by six-foot tall wooden bunny rabbits, bears, and tortoises wearing hats. There are two giant, pristine aquariums – one of which is a full 360-degree cylinder – filled with all types of aquatic life. The “magic forest” has huge hollow trees for games of hide and seek and a reading nook cut into the wall where kids can curl up with one of the hundreds of free story books available on the donated book cart.

While much can be written about the decorations, architecture, and layout of Nationwide Children’s Hospital, the most important parts of the hospital – the most valuable assets – are the people employed there. Hazel has never been treated like just “any other patient” by the NCH staff, she has been treated like the ONLY patient. They have seen her as who she is, a special redhead that is smitten with an ugly disease and fiercely loved by many.  

Since the very first time we stepped across the threshold in the ER, every staff member we have met has had a special “spark”, an aura that is difficult to explain but easy to recognize. It’s more than loving their job or having good bedside manner, it is a calling; a deep-seated compassion for children that comes out in every action, every word, every touch.  Everything they do is to help save our children. These people work tirelessly – day in and day out – to save precious young lives. The loving look in the eyes of the NCH staff and the soft tones of voice they use to speak to Hazel are surely God-given and must be how Jesus spoke to the small children that came to Him in Mark 10:13-16.

“People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone, who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”

Many times over the past four months I have been brought to tears by the empathy that our care team shows. NCH has treated Hazel Basil as if she is precious, a special gift to the world, a treasure. Our treatment team has fought for her, cried for her, celebrated her victories, and mourned her losses. They have held us as we’ve wept, reassured us in our concern, and provided advice in the darkest times of our lives. They have seen us at our most raw, watched as we were stripped of everything that mattered most in our lives, and have helped pick us back up as we learn to live with the new normal that is our life. These are our people, the ones that saved Hazel. The ones that cared for her from day one and continue to care for her today. The bond we have created is not soon broken because they are more than staff, they are family.

Everything about NCH is designed to be welcoming, comforting; to promote a sense of wonder and imagination. To make us believe in magic, to look behind leaves for fairies, to believe we can fly. NCH reignites the spark that used to burn deep inside each of us as children. The sense of adventure, the idea that anything is possible, a feeling of hope. Hope that what we see around us is not all there is to this life. That the hate, the pain, the grief that fills so much of today is not what we were put on this earth to experience. NCH recreates the world that our children see every day. One in which race, creed, religious affiliation, or political party does not matter. One in which the fight for life, the fight for good, outweighs the forces of evil.

Our society is in turmoil. Racism, bigotry, and hate still exist, far too often taking center stage over the good and righteous acts that surround us each day. Nationwide Children’s Hospital reminds me that there are still lots of good people doing amazing things in this world. It reminds me that lives can be saved, eyes can be opened, and minds can be changed. NCH gives me hope, not just that we can save Hazel, but that we can save the world too.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.