Building a Family, Day Trippin’ with Red Blood, inside: Building a Bridge • Pedi Rehab • Blue • summer/fall PAGE 6 PAGE 12 PAGE 18 2005 A SAN FRANCISCO COUPLE A TRIP TO THE ZOO IS REAL- MAKING DYLAN’S HEART ADOPTS AN ETHIOPIAN ORPHAN. WORLD REHAB. WHOLE. 2 CHILDREN’S HANDPRINTS table of contents 6 3 DEAR READER Letter from the president 4 THIS AND THAT Beads of Courage Mapping the journey to good health starts with a strand of beads. Waves of Hope in Tsunami-ravaged Indonesia Children’s nurses bring their talents to Indonesia. Rare Blood, Found! Matching Aaron’s very rare blood type was a life-and-death matter. Cooking for a Family of 100 How Children’s feeds a hundred hungry mouths 10 and keeps them all smiling. 6 IN THEIR OWN WORDS Building a Family, Building a Bridge Children’s Hospital’s International Adoption Clinic recently helped a San Francisco couple deal with the health concerns of an orphaned child they adopted from Ethiopia. 10 FEATURE: SPORTS MEDICINE Comeback Kid The Sports Medicine Clinic helps a talented teen bring his baseball-pitching career back to life. 12 PHOTO STORY Day Trippin’ with Pedi Rehab When the Pediatric Rehabilitation staff take their 12 patients to the zoo, it’s not just to see the animals. 16 PHYSICIAN PROFILE Staying Balanced Buddhist meditation and personal art-making helps psychotherapist Joanne Yeaton keep her balance while she helps kids keep theirs. 18 FEATURE: CARDIOLOGY Red Blood, Blue It took a team of pediatric specialists, hundreds of community friends, a caring employer and the spirit of a family to see Dylan through four open heart surgeries before he turned 4. 20 CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL & RESEARCH CENTER FOUNDATION Children’s Helps Homeless Mothers A grant-funded study will help Children’s 18 Hospital learn how to keep homeless women and their children together, to not let substance abuse or mental health problems lead to family dissolution. Grateful Families Give Back to Children’s Saying thank you is one more way to help. Children’s Miracle Maker Awards Children’s Miracle Maker Awards honor staff with a history of extraordinary patient care. The American Dream Realized Alfredo Moreno left Children’s a substantial bequest after a life filled with hard work and a loving family. 24 BOARD LIST 26 RESEARCH What’s Up with Diabetes The best way to beat disease is to prevent it. ON THE COVER: Dylan’s heart defect opened the heart of a community. See “Red Blood, Blue” starting on page 18. Photo by Gary Turchin. SUMMER/FALL 2005 3 Children’s HandPrints is a publication of Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland, 747 52nd Street, Oakland, CA 94609; 510-428-3000. Written, designed and produced by: Marketing Communications Dept. at Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland 665 53rd Street Oakland, CA 94609 Phone: 510-428-3367 Fax: 510-601-3907 Frank Tiedemann Dear Reader: President and Chief Executive Officer Mary L. Dean Senior Vice President, External Relations Welcome to the Summer/Fall 2005 edition of HandPrints, the magazine of Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland. Vanya Rainova Director, Marketing Communications The first thing that distinguishes a children’s hospital from other Editor facilities is that our specialists care just for kids. The word “just” can Tina Amey be misleading. There is nothing limiting about pediatrics. On the Receptionist contrary, while we focus on ensuring the well-being of children, our Debbie Dare areas of expertise and communities of care are constantly expanding Senior Graphic Designer to adjust to the needs of kids and their families. Susan Foxall Operations Manager For example, on page 10 you can read about how a three-sport Nina Greenwood high school athlete’s pitching career came dangerously close to an Marketing Manager end before sports medicine specialists helped him back into the Tom Levy game. The Sports Medicine Clinic for Young Athletes is a new and Senior Writer unique service, the only such program in Northern California. Venita Robinson Our vision of health mirrors the broadness of our community Director, Media and Community Relations of care: it reaches beyond ensuring physical health to include Gary Turchin addressing the psychosocial challenges that kids face. A Children’s Writer psychotherapist (page 16) uses modern biofeedback techniques to Diana Yee Media Relations Specialist ease kids’ anxiety. Our work is varied and far-flung. But the disparate storylines of Contributing Writer: Melissa Diagana our patients and providers all reflect our commitment to providing the best pediatric care. Contributing Illustrator: Neile Shea Sincerely, Story requests, comments or Frank Tiedemann suggestions for Children’s HandPrints President and Chief Executive Officer may be e-mailed directly to Vanya Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland Rainova ([email protected]), or sent to 665 - 53rd Street, Oakland, CA 94609. 4 CHILDREN’S HANDPRINTS this this this this this this this this this ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat this ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat Beads of Courage Waves of Supportive care gets a new tool, Hope in and it’s a beaut! Tsunami- Kids with cancer endure countless probes, injections and ravaged tests. It takes courage and resilience Indonesia to get through the treatment. They Children’s nurses should get medals. bring their talents to The new Beads of Courage program Indonesia. SHIP SHAPE: Mary Frazier with a young at Children’s Hospital & Research Center at Oakland does just The tsunami of patient and his mom aboard the USNS that. Patients are awarded beads for each procedure or treatment Mercy. milestone. By the end of their treatments, kids have a strand of 2004 created an inter- colorful beads, a map of their journey to good health. national humanitarian crisis. Answering the call for help were “To see Patricia’s history visually like this is pretty over- Children’s Mary Frazier, RN, and Tammy Leung, RN, who whelming,” says Dina Macdonald, mother of 3-year-old Patricia, volunteered for assignment aboard a Project HOPE ship, the while studying her daughter’s first strand of beads. Patricia has USNS Mercy, in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, for earned enough beads for at least two strands, including 33 red three and four weeks of what Mary calls beads for 33 blood transfusions, 100 white beads for 100 days of “grinding nursing duty.” chemotherapy and 8 glow-in-the-dark beads for 8 radiation By the time the two nurses arrived, the treatments. There’s also a special hand-made glass bead to first wave of tsunami victims had already acknowledge the day Patricia met Sam, a special friend in her been treated. But there was plenty to do. unit, and a blue glass bead for a particularly courageous day. The local hospital, some 20 blocks from “That’s when we got over our pity party,” Dina remembers. # shore, was devastated. A six-foot wall of mud had wiped out the pediatric ward, SILLY MOMMY: Patricia shares a light moment with mom. killing the children and many of the The 3-year-old has earned enough Beads of Courage to fill medical staff. two full strands. “The culture accepts death as a part of life,” Mary emailed from aboard ship. “They expect God to give them challenges on earth. They are grateful for our care and very gracious. They are humble, modest and respectful. I feel blessed to be among them.” Both nurses worked night shifts, Mary in the medical/surgery ward, Tammy in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). They didn’t go ashore often, but when they did, they were flown on military helicopters. Patients were brought in the same way. AIRBORNE: Tammy [above] and Mary Shortly after the nurses returned home, aboard helicopters Indonesia was struck by a huge earthquake. on their way ashore. Tammy promptly returned to Project HOPE, which had moved near the quake’s epicenter in Niaz Island, Indonesia, for another three weeks of duty in the ship’s PICU. # SUMMER/FALL 2005 5 this this this this this this this this this ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat this ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat ANDthat Rare Blood, Found! Cooking for a Family of 100 Matching Aaron's very rare blood type was a life-and- How Children’s feeds a hundred hungry mouths and death matter. keeps them all smiling. Sometimes at Children’s It’s hard enough feeding a family of four, with everyone’s we’re forced to seek the prover- taste buds different. Imagine feeding a family of a hundred, all bial needle in the haystack. kids, every day, three squares and snacks, with as many dietary Case in point: Aaron, 4, needs, restrictions, allergies, calorie and fat content guidelines, has sickle cell anemia, an inher- religious and flavor preferences as there are mouths. And imag- ited blood disease. It caused his ine offering them on-call room service, any time between 7 a.m. spleen to enlarge and in and 7 p.m., ordered from a full-scale restaurant menu. Finally, December, Keith Quirolo, imagine keeping all the patients happy and satisfied. That’s the MD, the boy’s longtime pedia- task Children’s Food Services faces every day. trician, said the spleen would It takes a tag-team-like effort, starting with dietetic assistants have to be removed. who answer the phone and take orders. They pass the orders to But routine blood tests EXTRA EXTRA: Aaron’s story chef Irma Villagomez-Miranda, a trained culinary expert. was front page news in the revealed something startling— “It’s not always the most glamorous cooking,” says Irma, San Jose Mercury News. Aaron had one of the rarest who has worked in many upscale cookeries, “but I get a great blood types in the United States.