F, our beloved five-year-old son, was diagnosed with Burkitt Lymphoma in November, 2023 and after a courageous battle, passed away in July, 2024. His battle would require 181 days of in-patient hospitalization at two nationally renowned children’s hospitals, receiving chemotherapy, immunotherapy, radiation, intensive care, countless transfusions, dozens of imaging procedures, several surgeries, hours of physical and occupational therapy - the list could go on and on. F’s fight and resolve, along with those of countless kids going through similar hardship, will forever inspire those fortunate enough to so intimately witness.   
 
While F’s 181 days were generally comprised of difficulties no child should endure, each day was made better by the nursing staffs at Children’s Minnesota and Children’s Colorado - those in charge of executing his care every hour of every day. That care, while focused on the medical treatment and therapies F required to battle cancer, also included so much more.    

For a five-year-old battling a disease he could not understand - this additional care would include listening to his vocal and silent cues, explaining the everyday activity in simple ways to avoid creating additional fear, going above and beyond to provide distracting activities to pass the time, and simply being a calm while persistent presence in his room. And for us, the parents of that five-year-old, this additional care would provide the compassion, patience, and daily friendship needed to get through the toughest days a parent can endure.     
 
While there are many nurses who made these 181 days better for F and his family, no one fulfilled these duties - during his life, his death, and after his death - more than Dana Schaefer. F was fortunate to call Dana his nurse and we, perhaps just as importantly, are fortunate to call her our friend. Dana exemplifies a selfless professionalism in a line of work more important and more stressful than almost any. She very literally puts her patients and their families before herself and while I must refrain from publicizing the specifics of her personal story - the general context is important to fully document and appreciate her incredible work, especially during the most challenging days of F’s battle.    
 
After four brutal cycles of chemotherapy, we were excited for F’s mid-way disease evaluation and to hear the word “remission” for the first time. I can recall my dislike for the word as it implies the disease is laying dormant ready to attack again at any point; as opposed to a word like “cured” or one filled with more long term assuredness. Semantics, I suppose, of the disease and the broader medical field I’m not smart enough to understand. Regardless, we would not hear any such word as the evaluation revealed residual disease, now undoubtedly resistant to the chemotherapy. This would kick off an unexpected detour to Children’s Colorado for a two month immunotherapy trial. Devastatingly, we would learn this therapy also did not get us to the “remission” word we were now so desperate to hear; and we made the long trek back to Minneapolis unsure what, if any, curative options remained.    
 
The after the longest period outside a hospital since November, we were back at Children’s Minnesota to begin a final cycle of very toxic chemo - viewed as one final Hail Mary we decided to take despite the known risks and low likelihood of remission. And in a time filled with persistent bad luck, we had the good fortune of Dana being assigned to F for the following few days which would turn out to be the hardest stretch of our entire cancer journey.    

Skipping over the graphic detail, it became evident shortly after this admission the cancer had progressed beyond what any further treatment could cure and F’s remaining quality of life had to become the sole focus looking forward. This acknowledgement was perhaps even more difficult than his ultimate death, which would come a month later. And it was at this point that the selflessness and kindness of Dana Schaefer went even beyond what she had displayed in so many ways leading up to it.    
 
I can vividly remember returning to F’s room after we had brought him downstairs for radiation - a procedure meant only to extend quality of life for a couple weeks. The room, void of the giant hospital bed and the emptiness of the moment so intense all we could do is sit and cry. A few minutes later, Dana entered and asked if she could spend some time with us. I’ll never forget her pulling the little roller chair directly in front of us and thinking how natural it all seemed to her. At that moment, I knew death was a terrible part of her vocation, but I didn’t know death was such a terrible part of her personal life, too.    
 
Dana spent the next hour grieving with us, telling her emotionally painful and personal story of intense grief over a similar loss. It quickly became clear she came to work that morning, knowing this was going to be her role. A role that would require a painful removal of her own bandage to help apply one to us. And it’s hard to imagine a more selfless act than helping a family in that moment by recounting her own horrible experience to help us understand, however minor at the time, what we were to experience and how to live through it - when she certainly didn’t have to.    
 
Her extraordinary care culminated that day by assuring us she had made arrangements with the one closest to her who had passed to welcome F and introduce him to heaven. This helped calm one of our biggest fears of F being alone when he left this world as he had never known anyone who died. When F got back from his radiation (still not knowing how sick he was), Dana even talked to him about this person, how he wanted to meet F someday - and in doing so in such an unassuming way, created a noticeable calmness and happiness in F on a very difficult day. Within hours of this conversation, Dana discharged us into the care of the palliative / hospice team.    
 
Dana helped us better understand the stages of grief we were experiencing and guided us using her own similar experience. Her continued willingness to open her own pain to help us understand ours, at that point had become routine but no less impressive.    
 
So, it is with pleasure and honor that we nominate Dana for the DAISY Award. And it’s our sincere hope that she’s awarded this honor. Not simply for caring for F as if he were her own kid (for many months) and not simply for the unyielding support for F’s grieving parents during the most awful of times - but for her selfless dedication, which I witnessed daily for each child under her care suffering from cancer.