February 3-5 was the 7th annual Caring for Kids Radiothon here in Calgary Alberta Canada. It is a 3 day event that is held at the Alberta Children's Hospital that tries to get people to join the miracle network and donate to the hospital to help buy important medical supplies. For just $18 dollars a month or 60 cents a day people can help make the hospital a better place for the kids. The radiothon is broadcasted on the Country105 and Q107 radiostations here where they invite familes who have been in the hospital or who have used the hospital in the past to come on and tell their stories of how the hospital saved their childs life. You hear stories of kids who have been given the diagnosis of a life threatening cancer and have beat the odds and survived, stories of kids who have survived horrific accidents from colliding with a tree to being hit buy a car, and stories of kids who have brain tumors, congenital heart defects, and other mysterious diseases. Hearing these stories makes you cry and make you want to do what ever you can to try to help out these kids an their families. Not all of the stories have appy endings but each one tells the story of miracle. This year there was a story of a 16 year old girl named Tegan who was born with cerebral palsy, she had surgery to correct the curvature of her spine and though that everything was going to be fine and that she would live a realtively normal life. In January she was diagnosed with stage 4 rhabdomyosarcoma, the cancer had spread throughout her entire body. She is on 7 chemotherapy drugs where the usuall treatment of cancers are only 3, one of the drugs she is on is a cousin of mustard gas. She tells her story and her mother talks about how her daughhter has already planned her funeral and has gone looking for the perfect cemetary to be buried in. Tegan tells her mom that she is not going to die anytime soon its just that she would like to be prepaired for when she does. And there was a story of an 8 year old boy who had a stoke and one of a little girl who was born with a congenital heart defect and needed a transplant but did not get it in time so her brother decide that he wanted to go something to give back to the hospital and to help out the other kids there, so he decided he would swim 25 lap in a pool and raise money for the hospital but instead of 25 lap he swam 36 and raised $7542 that he then gave to the hospital. Along with a story of a 10 boy who had been out snowmobiling and hit a tree, the tree went throuh his body and when he looked down he seen his intestines hanging out and held them in place as he waited for help to come and survived.

During the radiothon they do power hours where they set a goal of getting a certain number of people to joing the miracle network in and hour, if they reach the goal an organization will donate $12,000 to the hospital. One of the power hours was to get a new ecco machine of the cardiologists to use which costs over $17,000, another was to get specialized surgical equiptment, and they did several more the get other important things that the hospital could use. They even did a power hour to get bear ear foe every child in the hospital and another to get a build a bear for all of the kids in the hospital. Not once did they not make the goal that they set even when they needed 250 people in 1 hour.

Along with listening to these amazing stories Paul Brandt was also there to talk to the kids and singing to help raise more money. He has been doing this since the radiothon started 7 years ago, he had worked at the hospital for 2 years as a nurse and had become really attached to it and all of the kids that he had worked with so he decided that he would do what ever he could to try to help the hospital eventhough he was no londer working there. No matter where he is in the world he always makes sure that he comes to take part in the radiothon.

This year the radiothon raised $1,883,379.00 in just 3 days, this money will go toward buying new equiptment, funding research and providing the important thing that the hospital needs.

Each year the Alberta Children's Hospital see's over 75,000 kids a year. To give you a idea of what goes on in the hosptial each day here are the numbers for February 3 :there was 30 surgeries, 10 kids having chemotherapy, 500 clinic visits, 13 kids in the ICU, 129 kids that are in the hoospital and would not be going home, and 69 visits to the emeregency room.

Some interesting facts about the Chidren's Hospital: the hospital is a 750,000 square foot building and was designed by the patients. it provides pet therapy where faimilies can bring in their pets into a special room so that the kids can feel more like they are at home, it has a state of the art simiulation centre which is used by doctors and nurses from all over the world, it has an indoor play center which is designed to look like the outside so that those kids who are unable to go outside are able to atleast feel as if they are out playing in the park, each room has a window with a view to the mountains and the river so that the kids who cannot get outside can see the sun which promotes healing, it has over 133 beds for both short and long term stays and each inpatient room has accomidations for the families to stay the night, there is an auditiorium with a 20 foot by 11 foot screen where moves are shown and ther is access for pateints in wheelchairs and hospital beds, the ER has over 30 exam rooms, 9 operatins suites, 2 special surgical rooms, five dedicated induction rooms with parent accessibility and 22 post-op recovery beds, 36 day surgery beds, a family and community resource centre, an in hospital school which provides schooling to over 250 patients, therapeutic arts program, a spitatual centre, auditiorium and conference centre, healing gardens, and several clinics that provide both inpaitent and outpatient care. The hospital has amazing doctors who specialize in everything from cardiology to oncology and everything in between along with someone who specializes in strokes, and there are researchers trying to find cures for rare diseases and are trying to create vacines for cancers.

40 years ago only 40% of kids diagnosed with cancer would survive now that number is up to 80% thanks to the research done here at the hospital. And the average hospital stay used to be 4 months but now it is 4 days thanks to the amazinf doctor's, nurses, and staff the work at the Alberta Children's Hospital.

To learn more about the Caring for Kids Radiothon and to listen to the amazing stories go to http://www.country105.com/Events/Radiothon.aspx

To learn more about the Alberta Children's Hospital go to http://www.calgaryhealthregion.ca/ACH/index.html

To learn more about the Alberat Children's Hospital Foundation and to hear the stories from the Radiothon go to http://www.childrenshospital.ab.ca/site/PageServer?pagename=home_template