Echo of Hope

Bird, Jordan, Magic…time to step aside. There’s a new dream team in town, working the floor with a surgical precision you and the rest of the ’92 Olympians could only dream of.

Introducing Danger Schultz’s All-Star Unstoppable Roster

Coach: Dr. Wayne Tworetzky, Director, Fetal Cardiac Imaging and Advanced Fetal Care Center at Boston Children’s Hospital. He’s like the CEO of this entire operation. He’s coached 89 patients through the surgery. Here’s to a lopsided victory for #90.

Assistant coach: Terra Lafranchi, Nurse Practitioner, Fetal Cardiology Program, Boston Children’s Hospital. Terra has been extremely helpful in helping us understand the procedure as well as what the families go through after. She stays up to date on where these children are now and how they’re doing, and has helped us navigate the whole process.

Point guard: Dr. Carol Benson, Director, Ultrasound at Brigham & Women’s. She’s the team’s eyes, guiding the surgery itself via ultrasound.

Shooting guards: We’ll be fielding a platoon of anesthesiologists sugar daddys. Someone needs to shoot drugs into the baby and me to keep us both dreaming sweet dreams.  Just a little push, and we’ll be smiling. Sadly we’ll miss the game this time, but we’ll look forward to seeing it on ESPN Classic.

Small forward: Dr. Louise Wilkins-Haug, Director, Maternal Fetal Medicine, Brigham & Women’s. She’s our slasher, driving through the lane, getting the needle to the hole.

Frontcourt: Dr. Audrey Marshall, Cardiologist & Dr. James Locke, Cardiologist-in-Chief, Boston Children’s Hospital. Nothing will stop these two from taking the ball, slam dunking it through that little hole, and, just for kicks, inflating the ball like a balloon to see if we can’t make the little hole a little bigger.

Managers:

Ginny Silva, Coordinator of Fetal Therapy, Brigham & Women’s. Ginny will be herding all these superstars into the room for the procedure and will be watching over me, making sure I get the care and feeding I need.

Kathy Bennett, Nurse in Charge, Center for Fetal Medicine, Brigham & Women’s. Kathy’s keeps the trains on the tracks, making sure everything behind the scenes happens so the stars can get in there and do their thang.

Rookies in reserve? Nope. Not for this one. Prime time crew only.

Good luck to the team on Tuesday. We’re taking a big shot, and we’re doing with the best crew possible.