Saving Babies
Posted on July 18, 2020
I agreed to write this one on Cookie’s behalf. So in essence I am his first guest blogger – lucky him!!!
To be honest I am probably the better choice for this one because he doesn’t think of what he does as being miraculous. For the most part, he doesn’t really think about it as being extraordinary at all.
I have worked in marketing for 20 plus years. On days where we felt we were facing an insurmountable issue we would hold a meeting to hammer out a strategy that usually ended with the same remark: “It‘s not like we are saving babies here – so just relax!”
But what do you those of us who actually are saving babies say???
Living beside AJ Cook has allowed me a unique vantage point to the front-line workers in health care. These are the people who are there to rescue you or your loved ones when seconds are critical and no one else can. The souls who truly do care more about all of us than they do themselves. They witness horrible things that would leave anyone traumatized and then go back for more. They are the front-line workers who do not have a choice, the ones we rely upon to be there for us whether “us” applies to an individual or society as a whole, as in the case of the Covid19 pandemic we currently find ourselves in.
AJ Cook, like so many others, has sacrificed so much – so much time, so many nights so many firsts…..first steps, first words and first days of school. All to be there for those of us who need him most. It is a cross to bear and please trust me when I say that none of those in health care take their positions lightly.
From what I can tell, these baby savers are most critical of themselves, there is self-blame when things go wrong, late nights and unending calls from parents. It is more than full time and it seems to require a superhuman amount of care for others not to mention a superhuman capacity to care about others.
However, as for the rest of us looking in, we tend to romanticize these seemingly superhuman roles. We not only romanticize them but we also fantasize about what their life might really be like. Dinner guests tend to lean in when Cookie tells a “hospital story”. They want a glimpse inside the OR. I guess we all do.
I have only been able to imagine what it is like for him, how Cookie performs miracles every day for the patients he saves, many of them only days old. To follow him into the OR and get a peek behind the curtain is as thrilling to me as I am sure it is to you. It’s only fair to offer a disclaimer – just be prepared for the heartbreak alongside the heart stopping suspense at the crossroads between life and death. Losing isn’t just about the patient, it’s about the surgeon as well.
“Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery, where from time to time he goes to pray.” Rene Leriche
1 thought on “Saving Babies”
D Sobchychyn
–Thank you for bringing forward the life’s work and essence of AJ. Thank God there are people like him to create miracles. I look forward to learning more about AJ andJJ and enjoying the books you are creating., and the glimpses of your perspectives to come😉