When Chris Rumble, an American Hockey player aged all of 22 years was diagnosed with Leukemia, he was, understandably crushed. But, he brought together the Hemato-Oncology floor of the Seattle Children’s Hospital together for a fantastic remake of the fantastic Kelly Clarkson number, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. It has already gone viral, hitting half a million views by the time I reached it. Do take a look:
Rumble made the video with the help of Seattle University film students Ben Anderson, Lael Rogers and Sawyer Purman as the camera crew.
Here is the behind-the-scenes video that was out up on the Seattle Hospital’s official YouTube channel:
For me, Seattle Children’s Hospital is synonymous with the famous Seattle Mama Doc blog maintained by Dr Wendy Sue Swanson, a Pediatrician, Mom and blogger extraordinaire, Seattle Childrens’ has a strong social media presence and this fantastic video shot over the last Saturday afternoon places it even more firmly on the ever changing map of the social media.
I have had minimal exposure to Pediatric Oncology during my Internship and one thing that always struck me was that despite the life changing diagnosis of cancer, these children were some of the most resilient, happy and satisfied bunch. Some of them were so experienced that they would take part in the whole procedure as well. I remember this one little boy, all of 8-9 years of age, suffering from leukemia, who had been admitted for nearly 3 weeks by the time my rotation started. Initially he had responded well to the medicines but then things started going wrong. He had some infections, there were kidney issues, as also liver involvement, both of which led to fluid retention and edema of a distressing degree… in all he was a very sick child. One night we discovered his IV cannula was blocked and no amount of coaxing would make it work. The only way left was to remove it and put in a new one. While I prepared for the inevitable kicking and screaming to start when I approached him with a cannula, my resident told me that I was in luck, because this was one patient who was awesome. I went into his cabin. Removed his old cannula. Gave him some candies to distract him. And then took out the new cannula to place. Now this is the time kids usually go crazy. I mean I cannot blame them. If I saw someone approaching me with a needle to poke me, I would throw a major tantrum. I was about to put on my most coaxing-cajoling face and try to get the cannula in, when the kid piped up – “Don’t try to put it on my left hand, the veins there are not very good. Here, try my left forearm. They always manage to get one in here. Also, make it quick, the longer you parry, the more it hurts!” (I am paraphrasing, of course).
These kids always leave an impression on the minds of the interns rotating through Pediatric Oncology in our hospital. I just wanted to give Rumble a thumbs up and wish him a speedy recovery.