My daughter, Marybelle, was born with tracheoesophageal fistula and esophageal atresia. In oilfield terms, her esophagus going down from mouth TD’d early and stopped before the pay zone, her stomach and then her esophagus coming up from the stomach sidetracked into her trachea. She had that repaired and is thriving but she’s 5 and has been back to OU Children’s roughly 30 times for various issues, typically to ream out the esophagus repair when the scar tissue wants to act like a swelling shale.
The Volunteers at Children’s are a miracle. The Volunteers make my daughter forget that she’s in a hospital for a while. From bringing by handmade pillow cases, toy baskets, making craft kits for the kids to put together in the Child Life Zone to spend a few hours outside of the room and most importantly, the therapy dogs! The smile on her face when Sparkles climbs up into her bed or when Rufus licks her face really do the trick. There are 4 facility dogs, dogs owned by Children’s, but there are about 18 dogs owned by various Volunteer groups. The dogs range from an English Bulldog, Golden Retrievers, Poodles, Golden Doodles, and a few Bernese Mountain Dogs. These dogs are put through a lengthy training process before being allowed to come put smiles on the faces of hundreds of children and their mommies and daddies every day of the week.
The Volunteers at OU Children’s Hospital are near and dear to my heart and I hope you can help support this worthy cause.
-Scott Dixon
