In a small room in the cancer unit at Children's Hospital of Minneapolis, Dr. Bruce Bostrom and nurse Sara Froyen Gernbacher were discussing the minutiae of several cases. One boy down the hall had just been given some cough medicine. Another was asking questions about his treatment. A lot of questions.
"I tried to answer all of them as best I could," Gernbacher said. "I hope I did OK."
There were 115,619 stories at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota last year, and most of them unfolded quietly and without fanfare, just as they did Thursday. They were stories of joy, sadness and, more often than not, hope.
But none resonated like the case of Daniel Hauser, a 12-year-old farm kid whose parents refused to treat his Hodgkin's lymphoma with chemotherapy, saying they were relying on the advice of Native American healers instead. But the courts forced them to treat Daniel because, with treatment, his chances of survival were excellent. Without it, he would almost certainly die.
Daniel's mother, Colleen, fled with her son, but eventually returned and got him the court-ordered treatment. Last week, a judge rescinded the child-protection order when his radiation treatments end. Daniel appears to have recuperated from his lymphoma.
The case, which got international attention, began when Bostrom and Gernbacher reported the family's reluctance to treat Daniel to authorities, something neither had done in their 22-year careers.
"It wasn't an easy thing to do, but it was an obvious thing to do," said Gernbacher, who decided she would treat kids with cancer after spending time at a cancer camp, where she met Bostrom.
Bostrom is thin and soft-spoken. His calm nature and frequent smile give him a Mr. Rogers demeanor. When he mentions that he does Scandinavian folk dancing in his spare time and that his wife, Char, plays fiddle, it seems to fit.