When I was in high school, a mentor told me to read a book by a pediatric oncologist/neurosurgeon called If I Get to Five. The book laid out some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking stories of former patients who stood against some of the greatest odds. Within these pages and from these stories, I felt the initial tug to pursue a life that allowed me opportunities to walk alongside children and their families as they faced difficult circumstances. In the book, Dr Fred Epstein talks about how children often have a greater capacity to hope than their adult counterparts facing the same realities because they still believe in good conquering evil. Children are often not as jaded or as cynical and still dare to hope, dare to dream, of a better reality than the one they are currently facing. 

I have seen that time and time again. Parents receive difficult news, a life changing diagnosis, adversity at home or in the classroom and they feel defeated, sad, overwhelmed. When they come for therapy, it is like accepting a lifeline. It may be back to where they started or, maybe, to a new life, a different story than they anticipated. My goal for PACE is to help create the scaffolding to move them from point A to point B. The joy that I find in my job is helping to rewrite the narratives around those circumstances and often around the child allowing parents and caregivers to offer deeper understanding, grace, and patience for their particular child’s journey. 

I was drawn to being a physical therapist because of ability to do something tangible, to make something change within the hour that I was with them. As I have continued down this path, I have grown to love and appreciate my job more because of the relationships it has brought me. It’s hard to put into words how you can feel such pride in a child’s achievement or in a child’s ability to feel pride, maybe even for the first time, in him or herself. My job squarely places me in the trenches with the families. I am grateful for their trust and their willingness to ask for and receive help. And I am honored that I get to be the one to walk this journey out with them.