An Idea is Born

Two years ago I was struggling in a way that I hadn’t since my teens. Doctors told me repeatedly to give myself some time to adapt and my body to adjust to a new regiment of daily, life-saving medications. I felt pretty vulnerable and with the total thyroidectomy I had undergone, the hormones racing through my veins and brain were inconsistent and unreliable.

When the doctor called to tell me that I had thyroid cancer and that it was aggressive and had already spread into my lymph nodes, she was surprised by my reaction. She explained that they rarely gave this news over the phone but that we need to schedule surgery immediately. I was rather unfazed in fact, I was expecting it and I was ready to move to action.

As any parent can imagine, me handling the news and me handing the news off to my wife and kids were two different matters. Of course I broke down telling them despite my best intention to remain stoic. But with the doctor, I was all business. This was my third major surgery in four years and while I don’t enjoy going under the knife, I was a pro.

But nothing could prepare me for the hormonal imbalance and mental suffering. After surgery, I found my emotional and normally high empathy running off the charts without rails. Sure enough, it was dark and a draining time for me and the family that supported me. One by-product was that I became less tolerant about noise that I had previous accepted and made excuses for from my outside world.

This gave rise to my empathy for others to get sharply focused without distraction. I came across a website that sent cards to chronically and terminally ill kids around the globe. The volunteers who ran it could not keep up with all that entails a non-profit organization. And, while I was inspired by their reach, I was also inspired to fix problems I saw in their model—namely, that they freely gave out the address of these kids and families on their website. The only safety measure they had was typing in a math problem and warning parents to use generic postal boxes. Many didn’t.

This all happened in 2018. I made some notes and decided that with my other career priorities, I would have to come back to Smiles For Kids and if I did, then I knew it would be the right time and the right need. Then, 2020 happened and it was time.