Support the Kimbroughs

There are few things in this world that are absolute truths. Here are two: Cancer sucks. Nurses take care of their own.

Wait. Here’s one more: Bad shit happens to good people.

Eleven months ago, I sat with my friend and she told me about her husband, John’s, diagnosis. Eleven months. Tim the tummy tumor came into their lives eleven months ago and has been wreaking havoc ever since.

We’ve been friends for close to 15 years and all worked at CHOP for the first 6 or so. They both predated me by a few years and met and married when John wooed Gretchen, an ER nurse, with his whacker pack and his transport jargon, and she doubly impressed him by placing finger IVs in the hardest of sticks. John moved on to Nemours and Gretchen more recently as well, but they both, like all seasoned bedside nurses, have paraded through multiple units and specialties along the way. John found a home in the CICU, and Gretchen as a nurse in the float pool, but both continued making sacrifices only nurses on night shift can begin to understand to raise their two boys.

So, yeah, the 6 degrees of separation is more like 2 in this world, making the answer yes, that John Kimbrough. The sarcastic, golf pun, dad joke, music-loving John Kimbrough. A fantastic nurse and colleague, father, husband, and son to whom the baddest of shit has happened.

Eleven months. So much has changed. By the grace of a phenomenal hospital system, John has recently taken a leave of absence and Gretchen has taken a full-time position. Nurses don’t ask for help; we are the helpers. In many instances, we are the fixers. What can we do when we can’t fix it? Money doesn’t buy happiness or make any of the bad shit go away, but it damn sure cushions the fall. Money covers out-of-pocket costs. Money buys Chick-fil-A milkshakes and school tuition. Maybe, just maybe, it can relieve an iota of stress for these two. Maybe it can provide a memory reminiscent of a time before Tim.

All donations raised will be directly transferred to the Kimbroughs. Thank you. Fxck Cancer. Fxck Tim.