So Much More Than Medical Care

For Mazuma Credit Union’s Director of Awesomeness Laura Eblen, Children’s Miracle Network fundraising means creating opportunities for kids like her daughter Ashleigh to grow up strong.

It was the middle of the night and Laura Eblen’s nine-year-old daughter Ashleigh had a stomachache. “She came into our room to tell us her tummy hurt,” Eblen recalls. “Like any parents, we told her to go back to bed, that we would see how she felt in the morning.” But at 4:00 a.m., Ashleigh was screaming in pain. Eblen and her husband Ron knew then that they needed to take Ashleigh to a hospital. They also knew the hospital in town would not be a good choice.

<- Ashleigh current day

“Our local hospital wasn’t a children’s hospital,” Eblen explains. “It was a good place for minor scrapes and bruises, but it was not a major trauma center. And it wasn’t geared toward kids.” To make matters more complicated, Ashleigh experiences neurologically-based processing issues that make an event like going to the emergency room exponentially more upsetting and difficult to manage.

This was how Eblen found herself two hours from home at the nearest children’s hospital with no shoes, no purse and no phone. “The hospital was amazing,” Eblen recalls. “They had valet service at the E.R., so I was able to give my keys to the valet and rush Ashleigh in. Within an hour, they had diagnosed her with appendicitis and were taking her up for surgery.” Ashleigh was in capable hands. Eblen, on the other hand, was at a momentary loss: “I had dashed out of the house and had nothing with me.”

But she, too, received gracious care. “They took me to the Ronald McDonald room. They gave me a pair of socks, a meal and a phone to call my husband so he could make arrangements to join us.” Waiting for a child to emerge from the operating room is never easy. “When Ashleigh came out of surgery, she was holding a blanket and a stuffed animal that someone had donated,” Eblen says. “As a parent, that meant the world to me. I could see that they took care of her.”

A POSITIVE ENVIRONMENT FOR GROWTH

This middle-of-the-night trip to the E.R. in 2012 is only one episode in a longer and more complex relationship the Eblens have had with children’s hospitals. Ashleigh’s medical challenges began in infancy with recurrent ear infections and went on to span a wide variety of issues that eventually landed Ashleigh under the supervising care of a children’s hospital neurologist. She currently works with a team of 17 doctors.

The journey has been tough. But the care Ashleigh has received has been top-notch: “The doctors have taken the time to answer every question we’ve had,” says Eblen. “They’ve been open in their treatment plans, open to questions, so we could figure out what was happening with her. And we’ve always felt that the doctors were supportive of decisions we’ve made.”

Ashleigh’s care through their local children’s hospital lends special meaning to the Children’s Miracle Network fundraising Eblen does with the support of her employer, Mazuma Credit Union in Kansas. Although the Eblens do not receive direct support through CMNH, Eblen believes the support their local children’s hospital has had over the years from CMN – along with CMN’s support of research and of families with kids undergoing treatment – has helped to create a positive environment in which kids and families can thrive.

At 15, Ashleigh is managing a range of medical issues and is “very happy,” according to her mom. “She’s a pretty special girl,” Eblen says. “She does things in her own time, in her own way, and she always manages to keep a good attitude, to look for friends and love. Our children’s hospital has provided so much more than medical care,” including the chance for kids like Ashleigh to grow up strong.