It marks the pinnacle of every summer, the Stanley Stamm , childrens hospital camp week. The founder and leader of the camp movement is our childrens cardiologist, Dr Stamm, Chronicled in this little video I have had the amazing fortune to spend considerable time with athletes and coaches from local youth to World Cup and Olympic medalists, and yet Dr Stamm is still my hero. 33 years ago he was there bringing sanity to the chaos when our oldest was born and all the docs were telling us what they would do... And what we should do. Until this calm and soft spoken cardiologists helped us understand that we could ask questions and could make the specialists talk to each other... Huge turning point. Without him, I dont know how we would have got through the early years of Joshs life ... Let alone Hayleys . But after having 2 kids with a syndrome that, at that time no records existed of life after 17, we came to rely on his wisdom and his council as well as his understanding of their hearts as part of the whole body system. By age 6 josh was able to attend camp and 5 years later, Hayley was old enough ... Each benefited in their own way, they were able to enjoy the activities that normal kids took for granted and above that , learned to appreciate what they could do, rather than dwell on what they could not do. Both returned later as councilors, sharing their experience with the next generation of camper. This could go on and on , there are no gold medals for people like dr Stamm, there is ONLY the legacy of longer richer lives for the children he has treated and the families who have benefited in so many ways due to his selfless actions. Anytime I feel I am overloaded or over volunteered or think I have it bad due to my kids health problems or my aches and pains... It only takes a moment of remembering what Josh, Hayley and all the campers have overcome, and the efforts of amazing people like Stanley Stamm to help me put things in perspective and realize we all can do more and our problems are little. Heres wishing the 2014 campers and councilors a great sun and fun filled week of building memories !
Posted on: Sun, 17 Aug 2014 20:44:50 +0000
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