ORLANDO, Fla. – News 6 and Nemours Children’s Health partnered on Monday, April 17, to offer the community a chance to get results for young patients through the Nemours Children’s Day of Giving phone bank.
It raised money for the hospital’s Compassionate Care Fund which helps ensure every patient, no matter their financial need, receives the necessary treatment at Nemours. This year’s Day of Giving raised $106,000.
Last year’s phone bank raised $105,475.
This year, News 6 got an opportunity to meet with Macey and Blake Miller and their daughter, Ava, 2.
We learned Ava was born deaf, but thanks to cochlear hearing implant surgery at Nemours, she is able to enter the hearing world.
“Nemours was the first step after finding out. We met a lot of great people. That was kind of like the first rumor of hope I feel like because when we first when we left that office, we really didn’t know what was going to happen,” Blake Miller explained.
Ava continues to work with a speech pathologist at Nemours every week while also learning baby sign language.
“We work with a speech pathologist, speech language pathologist, who helps us with auditory verbal training and it’s a specialized kind of speech therapy for deaf children,” Macey Miller said.
[RELATED: Nemours Children’s Health, News 6 teaming up to host Day of Giving]
News 6 also got to know some of the volunteers at Nemours Children’s Health in Lake Nona, like Erin Bock and her therapy dog, Winston.
“It’s so fulfilling. It’s an experience a feeling in your heart that I can’t even articulate,” Bock said.
The two have visited multiple young patients over the last five years and while the hospital is Winston’s favorite place to spend his time, Bock explained the job can be emotional too.
“It’s mostly when you have patients that are here for a long time, and you know Winston will get on the bed with them. You know they are missing their dog and they are missing their home, but they are so happy in that moment,” Bock said.
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