Seven years ago, while working as a pediatric hematology/oncology massage therapist at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, I had an experience that changed the way I viewed my work forever.

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Early in my career, one of my teenage patients became critically ill and was transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit. This was a young man I had worked closely with during his admission, and I felt compelled to go see him.

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When I arrived at the PICU, I looked through the windowed door and saw his mother sitting on the couch beside his bed. Her son was sedated and intubated, with a machine breathing for him. She was watching her child fight for his life.

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You could feel her fear and pain from the doorway.

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I sat beside her, wrapped my arms around her, and let her cry.

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When she was ready, I began massaging her neck, back, and shoulders while she told me her story. She was a single mother of three children, doing everything she could to hold her family together while facing the unimaginable possibility of losing her son.

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She was guarded. She had difficulty letting the hospital staff in. But as we talked, I learned more about the incredible mother she was. I had heard firsthand from her son about how much she loved and cared for him, and I told her what an amazing mother I believed she was.

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She thanked me for always being there for her “baby” when she couldn't be at the hospital.

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That moment stayed with me.

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I realized that while the hospital was doing everything possible to care for her child—and rightly so—there was very little space dedicated to caring for her.

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Her life had not stopped because her child was sick. She was still a mother. She still had other children, responsibilities, financial concerns, relationships, and an entire life waiting for her outside the hospital. And now she was carrying all of that while sitting beside her critically ill child, trying to be strong.

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She needed someone to care for her, too.

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That experience opened my eyes to something I would continue to see again and again throughout my work with pediatric patients and their families: parents need support just as much as their children do.

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Massage became much more than massage to me. It became a way to show up. A way to listen. A way to give someone permission to put down the weight they had been carrying, even if only for an hour.

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That is where my vision began.

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I envision a program where pediatric oncology and hospital social workers can give a parent who is struggling a voucher for an hour of therapeutic massage in a safe, compassionate, and nonjudgmental environment outside of the hospital.

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A place where they don't have to be the strong one.

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A place where they don't have to explain themselves.

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A place where someone understands that behind the role of “parent of a patient” is a human being who is exhausted, frightened, overwhelmed, and deserving of care.

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Because caring for the parent is also caring for the child.

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When we care for the person caring for the child, we help give families the strength to keep going.

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You can now donate to help support our mission to provide this critical care.  *Please note: We are in-process of tax-exemption application and if we are granted, your donation may be tax deductible.