Day 19 of 25 DAYS OF HUGGING:
“Northwestern” in all its royal purple forms became a special place for Christina after she got married. It wasn’t easy when she got dragged to every home football and basketball game by her new husband (“how much do season tickets cost again???”), but when she got to start hosting tailgate parties, then it became a love and passion.
It was another chance to throw a party and
hug more people.
Christina was also introduced to Northwestern Memorial Hospital and the incredible doctors and researchers at Northwestern after we got married. While several doctors elsewhere told Christina she could not have children because of her fibroids, Dr. Lisa Mazzullo and her colleagues at the Northwestern Memorial Faculty Foundation saw to it through several surgical procedures that the fibroids would leave and that two amazing children would be brought into this world. Every time we left the hospital after a surgery or the two C-sections,
Christina made sure to hug all the nurses and
doctors who made possible her life’s ambition,
being the mother of John and Donna.
Christina’s last encounter at Northwestern was the valiant effort to beat down leiomyosarcoma. While it didn’t work as we hoped, she left there that last time to go home only after hugging and consoling the teary-eyed nurses and doctors whom she had so touched with words of encouragement. As we said getting into the car that dreadful day, we had many more awesome departures from there than this last one, and those others such as with John and Donna coming home for the first time would be the ones we would remember.
Christina’s involvement with Northwestern
continues today.
She has been recognized in several areas of the hospital campus for her giving during her lifetime and for what she meant to people that felt her hugs. It can’t be scientifically proven, but John, Donna and I know she orchestrated our introduction to Dr. Vadim Backman last year, a passionate researcher and humanitarian who has also felt the pain of losing a loved one to the same extremely rare cancer that took our Christina. He is doing amazing research in so many different areas, and one of his passions is to beat leiomyosarcoma, and all cancers, so that one day no one else will ever lose a wife, mother, daughter or sister to that dreaded disease again. Please take a look at his video here and you’ll understand why it wasn’t hard to convince the Board to support his research, and we know Christina was there to in spirit to make sure we did just that.
For more about Northwestern Memorial hospital, see www.nm.org
For more about Feinberg School of Medicine, see www.feinberg.northwestern.edu
For more about Lurie Cancer Center, see www.cancer.northwestern.edu
For more about Northwestern University, see www.northwestern.edu
Please consider a donation to CCCF: www.celebratingchristina.org/donate
One day, one goal, one hug.
