My Favorite Hands

Hold up your favorite hand. Look around at the hands around you. Some are delicate. Some are rough and strong. Most are carrying deadly bacteria and must be scrubbed and gloved to handle lines – oh I got distracted. Laurie would be proud. But regardless of the characteristics of our hands, we all seem to enjoy their functions and capabilities. Hands are remarkable creations.

Aron Ralston was no novice heading out to the remote wilderness. He was well trained in survival techniques and even participated in search and rescue for other climbers and adventurers. This was another of his great adventures in a remote part of Utah. He actually came across other climbers on his hike, but eventually was all alone in nature. The idyllic fun suddenly became horror. Deep in a crevice hidden from the world, a boulder moved. This was not planned nor foreseen. the unexpected movement pinned Aron's hand - his favorite hand to the canyon. The pain was intense. With minimal supplies and exposed to the unforgiving elements, Aron carefully calculated his options. For five days he struggles and calculated. Finally, he concluded that the only way to see another day required a great sacrifice. He had to cut off his hand to escape.

Imagine the mechanics. Breaking the two bones on the forearm – strong bones that had been stress-trained all those years. Then a careful dissection of the skin and muscle until you reached the arteries and those three big nerves that screamed each time he touched them. With the mental toughness that few of us can imagine, he did it. Emotion, that can only be imagined, exploded through him and the adrenaline (epinephrine to you guys) rushed allowing him to climb and walk to rescue.

Each day or night in that endless parade - when you walk into the PICU, you enter into the remote wilderness of the heart. Few come here and the majority who do come are not volunteers. They are family and friends of a dying child. They were on their adventure and without warning the boulder moved and they become trapped in the nightmarish poaaibilty of losing their child.

You choose to come. At first of this career there is always excitement – oh, do you remember the day you started down this road? You decided to help really sick children. Then you became aware of the danger. You learned that each day you approach a bedside must reach under a giant emotional boulder to touch one of these dear children. On occasion, far too frequently, the boulder shifts on you and you are stuck - Stuck loving a child and their family in a situation without an escape. The child turns cold and the family - the family experiences the pain of amputation. They have no choice. Disease and injury attacks and takes that precious piece of them – apiece from their heart.

You have a choice. Yet, you choose give a piece of your heart as well. You know that sticking your hand under that boulder has risk. You know that you will become trapped, eventually. You know that pain coming, though you don’t know when or with which child. But you choose to come back day after day to stick your hand – no your heart under that boulder to help children and families needing rescue.

Bravery is not the absence of fear. In fact, there can be no bravery without fear.
Without fear, the event is routine and easy – no bravery required. Real bravery occurs only when fear must be overcome. There is no love without risk. There is no caring without getting stuck. And with each attachment, each touch, you give to these children requires you to do what few can do or even understand. You must severe another piece of your heart and leave it behind.

Thank you for your bravery. Thank you for choosing to risk and choosing to sacrifice. You truly are heroes. My heroes.