Interested in donating you can Venmo us -Pact Addie's Story
“She doesn’t have 30 minutes” Those are the words that were on repeat for us. One minute we thought we were ok, and then the next we were headed to a worst case scenario for Addison. At 14 months old Addison was diagnosed with Human Metapneumovirus, Coronavirus-HKU1 and Pneumonia. She was taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden NJ where she spent 9 days in the ICU until she was transported to Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania on a ventilator. If you were or are still a parent of a sick child, you know the smell of an ICU. The sterile, cold feeling it leaves you with and the antiseptic smell are enough to have any parent, us included, worried we were leaving without our baby or that we were in for a tough battle. Something as small as a bottle of soap gave us the little spark of hope and comfort that we needed. When her nurse walked into her room at Cooper Hospital and said that Addie was getting the spa treatment, he had no idea what that bottle of Johnson’s Nighttime Lavender soap in his hand meant to us. That was what we used every night for bath time. That bottle was our normal, was our baby, and was our hope that night. When we were informed the nurses would buy the bottles because the hospital didn’t supply the name brand, it stuck with us. Something so simple could go such a long way for so many children and families so we decided on Addie’s Pact. We promised that Addie would know who saved her life. She would come back, spread hope and smiles to others, and thank those who took care of her day and night. While we weren’t sure how at first, the one promise we knew would seem so small to others, but so moving to us was soap. The moment her bath was over and she smelled like our baby again was the first time we had a genuine smile. The first time we thought maybe she would come home with us, and the first time we took a minute to tell ourselves that she was a fighter and we would make something of this. Our hope is to donate to those families in the Pediatric ICU's that are looking for that little bit of comfort. That one bath provided us with just a little bit of normalcy and comfort from home and that alone could make all the difference to a sick child.
