by Randy Bradford
Father and Extra Life Enthusiast
You probably think that playing games and helping sick children have nothing to do with each other. But that’s only because you haven’t heard about Extra Life.
Extra Life is a 24-hour gaming marathon that allows kids and adults to raise funds for a children’s hospital of their choice. Participants create a fundraising page online and then invite their friends and family to sponsor their participation in the marathon. Extra Lifers can commit to playing any type of game for 24 hours–videogames, computer games, tabletop games, or card games to basketball, soccer, croquet, and more.
Everyone who participates in Extra Life does so for their own personal reason. Here’s my story of why I Extra Life:
On April 24, 2014 my beautiful baby girl, Eleanor, was born. She was perfect. Eleanor was born more than three weeks early, but at five pounds, she weighed enough that she didn’t have to go to the NICU.
The day after we brought her home from the hospital, my wife felt that something was not right. We called our doctor and she suggested we go to Primary Children’s Hospital. When we got there, Eleanor’s vitals were lower than they should have been. We were most concerned about her temperature. Eleanor couldn’t keep her core temperature up and the doctors weren’t sure why.
Fluids (i.e., blood, urine, and spinal) were drawn to see if cultures would grow over the next 36 hours. If cultures did grow, the doctors would know what she was sick with and how to treat it. Remarkably, as we waited to see, our daughter’s health began to improve. The cultures all came back negative, meaning she didn’t have any kind of infection, and we soon returned home. It’s been four months since our daughter’s scare and she is perfectly happy and healthy.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think of Primary Children’s Hospital and how grateful I am for them. The staff was, in a word, “amazing.” They were able to take a scary situation and make my wife and I feel at peace. The nurses we had are heroes in my eyes.
You never want to have to take your child to the hospital, but if the need arises, Primary Children’s is where you want to be. My family was lucky. We were only there for 48 hours. When we left the hospital, there were families whose children had much more challenging health problems to overcome. My heart goes out to these families and I want to help in any way I can. It’s for this reason that I know I have to give back. I’ve chosen to give back to Primary Children’s Hospital by participating in Extra Life.
Extra Life is all about being a hero for the kids. Do you have a Primary Children’s hero? Perhaps it’s a really brave family member or friend who has been a patient there. Or maybe it’s the hospital staff that cared for your loved one during his/her hospital stay. Extra Life is your chance to honor those heroes by helping to raise funds for hospital programs that support Primary Children’s patients and their families.
The National Game Day will begin at 8 a.m. central time on Saturday, October 25th, and ends at 8 a.m. on Sunday, October 26th. However you can participate whenever it’s convenient for you. Some folks break the 24 hours into multiple segments. Be a hero! Register to participate at Extra-Life.org.
