Monday, September 26, 2005

More power to you -- comes in handy from time to time.


Summertime strength was needed recently by one of the youngsters. See comments for the full (edited) version.

Photo showed Coach Jason and some of the charges on the lawn at the Green Tree Swim Pool before a swim practice this summer.

1 comment:

Mark Rauterkus said...

I got this email from another board member on the summer swim team. I'd taken out all the names for privacy reasons -- and everything is working out okay.

All,
A swimmer's mom, called yesterday because she could not write down what the swim team means to her and her family. She wanted to make someone knew and could let the rest of the board know.

Her child had a routine tonsillectomy at the beginning of August. Ten days later the child lost 4 quarts of blood, had to have a blood transfusion, and was in the ICU for 10 days.

Apparently an artery was nicked and the child almost bled to death. After the surgery to place coils and a neck stint, he/she had to be paralyzed to prevent any moving. The doctors told the parents the reason the youngster is alive is because the heart was so strong it never stopped pumping. The doctors contribute this directly to swimming.

The child was in the hospital during our team's year-end picnic. When a parent brought in the participation trophy from the team this summer, and the Laps of Fun trophy, the patient's whole face lit up. So proud of them, the swimmer kept them in the hospital room. They helped to motivate, to try to get up and move to go home sooner.

The young swimmer is now on the road to recovery, back to school -- and can continue normal activities including sports in a few weeks as soon as the medication runs its course.

The child's mother was telling me this as she was sobbing and was so just so grateful for the swim team and everything we do. Her kids do a lot of different activities with different communities and she couldn't thank me enough for how they are treated no differently than others and how well run the swim team is.

I just thought everyone should know what she said and to thank you all for helping to make our team so special.