HOW ONE MOM AIMS TO REPAY A GIFT OF LIFE FROM SICKKIDS
Sue Hamilton credits Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) for saving her son Scott’s life. And that’s a gift that keeps on giving, she says. In a strange twist of fate, Scott — who barely survived birth — married Lindsay, another SickKids baby, many years later.
They now have two children of their own.
Hamilton still tears up when she recalls Scott’s birth. After a years’ long struggle with infertility, she finally became pregnant at 41 with a much longed for child. But Scott came five weeks early.
Delivered by C-section at (then) Peel Memorial Hospital in Brampton, Scott was “navy blue” due to severe oxygen deprivation, says Hamilton. His umbilical cord was knotted and pulled tight around his neck, cutting off his air supply. Hamilton’s fears that something was badly wrong were confirmed when a Code Blue rang out (signalling a life-threatening emergency). Even as the medical team worked frantically to stabilize Scott, they put in a call to SickKids, realising he would need more complex medical care.
By the time an emergency helicopter arrived with two highly trained SickKids nurses on board, Scott’s condition was critical. Both his lungs had collapsed, his kidneys failed, his heart stopped and he began to have seizures. He had an Apgar score (an indicator of the baby’s health) of zero. The nurses were undaunted and the pediatrician in charge simply stepped back and let them take over. “These are SickKids nurses,” he told Hamilton. “They know more than I do.”
When they were satisfied Scott would likely survive the journey, the nurses loaded him on the helicopter. Meanwhile, doctors at Peel Memorial tried to manage Hamilton’s expectations. “We were told Scott likely wouldn’t make it through the night, and if he did, he would be brain damaged,” she says.
Scott spent a full week at SickKids and Hamilton and her husband never failed to be soothed and reassured by the dedication and compassion of the medical team assigned to him. “They don’t become cynical,” says Hamilton. “The only thing that matters is the children.”
Ultimately, the care paid off — not only was Scott declared a healthy baby, his brain function was normal. He grew up, attended university and became a police officer. And one day he met Lindsay, the woman who would become his wife.
Oddly, she had been a SickKids miracle baby too. “Lindsay’s mother was also told that she would perhaps not survive her birth,” says Hamilton. “We bonded immediately over that when we first met.” Throughout her childhood, Lindsay underwent several operations at SickKids, travelling back and forth from her home in Sudbury.
Lindsay became a Designated Early Childhood Educator. Although she had been told she could probably never carry a baby, she and Scott now have two children of their own — Nathaniel and Landon. Neither required care at SickKids, but given the challenges that Lindsay faced, they consider both “miracle babies” in their own right. Hamilton has never forgotten the gift of life her son and daughter-in-law were given. “That’s what SickKids does,” she says. “They give you your life with your child. That is a large part of why we continue to support SickKids.”
For a world-class institution such as SickKids, donations are crucial, Hamilton points out. While government funds cover many of the operating costs of the hospital, its innovative research, clinical advances and compassionate care are all facilitated at least in part by donations.
That expertise gets passed on to medical teams world-wide through SickKids programs that train nurses and doctors from 60 different countries annually and through the Herbie Fund that flies kids from around the world to the hospital for life-saving operations.
For that reason, Hamilton has planned ahead, designating a gift to SickKids Foundation in her will. Lindsay’s mother and grandmother have done the same. “If there’s one thing we’re sure of in this life, it’s that we are going to die,” Hamilton says. “And I want to know that, when I do die, I will be able to continue doing some good.” Without community support, particularly through wills, she contends, the hospital would not be able to continue much of its groundbreaking research, nor would it be able to offer the kind of exceptional care Canadians have learned to expect.
Hamilton has discussed the donation with her son, so it will come as no surprise. “We’re not talking a vast sum of money,” she says, “but as someone who has accessed SickKids and taken advantage of the wonderful care there, I feel an obligation to support the hospital in any way I can.”