After six hours of chemotherapy, 12-year-old Gabriel Landis simply wanted to return to his hospital room on the third floor.
But his mother, Lynn McArthur, coaxed him to take the elevator to the lobby and listen to live music. Like other families who spend long stretches of time at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, McArthur knew it was “Music Mondays.” But she (and virtually everyone else, including most of the hospital staff) had no idea what else was in the making.
Gabriel, clad in a green and black ski cap and Dr Pepper pajama pants, looked glum as a musician performed “Frosty the Snowman.” Gabriel, who underwent a liver transplant in 2010 and is now fighting cancer for a second time, will likely be at Children’s through the holidays.
Suddenly on a cloudy, foggy day, at precisely 4:45 p.m., snowflakes fell from the sky.
“Mom, it is snowing!” Gabriel shouted.
“Well, don’t just sit there, let’s go!” she exclaimed. They hurried to the nearby garden outside. Together, they stretched their arms to feel the wintry mix land on their hands.
The idea for manufacturing a one-hour snowfall at all three Children’s Healthcare locations (here at Egelston along with the Scottish Rite and downtown Atlanta location) stemmed from a staff brainstorming meeting months ago. Children’s Healthcare is well known for doing everything it can to help lift the spirits of its young patients. It regularly offers entertainment, and it holds in-house summer camps. It even has its very own fairy godmother. Every December, the hospital organizes a Christmas parade.
But the staff kept coming back to one question: What about the children currently admitted at the hospital who won’t be able to make it to the parade?
“This snow surprise came out of a desire to create something special for our patients,” Dr. James Fortenberry, the pediatrician-in-chief at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, said as snow dotted his thick dark hair and long white lab coat. “We realized that there’s no time of year this is needed more than during the holidays.”
As the white confetti sprayed out and dusted the hospital garden, the wintry mix got thick but never accumulated enough to make a snowman or even a snowball. But that didn’t stop 8-year-old Tylan Baker from plopping down on the ground to try to make an angel. He stood up and noticed a heart-shaped imprint and beamed. Discharged after a seven-day hospitalization stay because of concerns over his body rejecting his liver transplant from years earlier, Tylan was on his way out of the hospital and home to Milledgeville when he and his mom noticed the snow.
As the snowfall abated, Gabriel and his mom went back inside.
Gabriel didn’t want to go to his room, not just yet. Instead, he and his mother decided to take a seat, listen to music and enjoy the moment.
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