A Day in the Life of Max and Co.: Max's Guardian Angel

This week Phoenix Children's Hospital and many "Heart Families" said goodbye to Mike Teodori. If you ask a colleague they will tell you that Dr. Teodori is one of the country's top pediatric cardiothoracic surgeons, if you ask one of "his families" they will tell you that he is a beacon of light in the darkest nightmare, a shoulder to cry on when you think you have no more tears to shed, but above all else he is a man who works miracles with our heart kids. Dr T does all of this without ego or pretense. Whenever we run into him hugs and kisses are exchanged as if we just ran into an old friend or family member. He thinks nothing of bending over and picking Max up to give him one of his trademark bear hugs. We all adore him and so it was with very heavy hearts that we marked his departure from Phoenix. We count ourselves among the lucky; we will stay in contact with Dr Teodori as he promised he’d never be more than a phone call away. Because I am sitting here with a lump in my throat, I think I'll just call it a night. What follows is part of the tribute we wrote and shared with the other families at this week's farewell as well as some photos of Max and his guardian angel.

...how do you put into words what a man like Dr. Teodori means to us? There's so much we want to say but somehow words don't adequately describe what we as a parents feel. How do you possibly thank someone for saving your son's life....more than once! That first year when Max was inpatient and underwent dozens of surgeries and procedures there were no words we found more comforting then hearing Dr Teodori say he would head up Max's care. When many other doctors treated Max as a lost cause, he gave us hope. As long as he believed in Max we did too!

When Max was about three years old he told us about being in the OR before Dr T began his open heart surgery, it was Max's first and he was only six weeks old. Naturally we thought he was enlisting a toddler's imagination but what he said to us took our breath away. He said, "When they brought me into the room Dr Teodori put his hand on my forehead and told me it was going to be OK, he was going to fix my heart." While we logically know Max could not have a real memory of the surgery we know his description was probably not far off track. In our mind's eye we could imagine Dr Teodori making what might seem like a simple gesture to a patient but it truly represents what Dr T is, a man who loves all his children as if they were his own.

Dr Teodori, we love you, we thank you and we will miss you with all our hearts! PCH will never be the same without you! Grazie Mille!