good life with katie chiet
Part of cultivating a good life is being part of something larger than yourself.
Six years ago, I felt like my life had *finally* fallen into place. I was entering my 30s newly married, working my dream job as a physical therapist, and expecting our first child. My pregnancy was textbook amazing; I ran a marathon and a half at 18 weeks and was feeling awesome. I had done an internship in pediatric rehabilitation but never considered something could go wrong during my pregnancy.
Until it did.
At 32 weeks, my doctors told me there was something wrong with my baby; they just couldn't tell me the "what." They scheduled an induction so he would arrive safely and to a waiting neonatal team. And so, later that summer, he did. He spent 2 weeks in the NICU where we met doctors of (almost) every specialty and continued to add to our team as his first year progressed.
Along the way, someone suggested all of these health issues could be related to a genetic cause and we googled his symptoms and one particular condition kept popping up - 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. A collection of 180 different problems; once our checklist had enough marks, we saw a geneticist and got our answer.
We took time to grieve but quickly regained our footing - I needed to *do* something. I called the director of a foundation created to help families like ours and threw out a suggestion - I wanted to run a 200 mile relay race with other members of our community and I wanted to raise $20,000 to help our children. She chuckled and told me to get back to her when I had 11 other runners. I called back in 9 days. Six months later, we completed our run and surpassed our goal; but more than all of that, we had succeeded in connecting a group of strangers with one thing in common and created lifelong friendships.
That foundation has evolved since that day but that race has continued - this May, we'll run from Chicago to Madison, WI raising awareness and funds for the 22q Family Foundation! The money raised goes directly to Education Station, a program created to help parents get the educational advocacy help needed to provide the best education for our children. The friendships created in that first year have grown and blossomed and even more than connecting parents, we have given our children their own support network!
There is something about finding your purpose in life. When I was in graduate school and asked to write a 5-year career plan, I assure you that running a non-profit was not in it; neither was my Chase. I chose a helping profession, but I believe this work chose me. Cultivating a good life doesn't mean just doing it for yourself; it means giving of yourself wherever your talents are needed.
“Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can.”
John Wesley
Katie is a member of the Creative Team using the Physical Product. Katie currently lives in Florida with her better half John and their 2 incredible boys Chase (4) and Ian (1).