Help make some Magic

  The second book of the Oath series is about ready. It's a longer process than I realized to get a book from my imagination into an honest-to-goodness, actual black print on white pages paperback. It involves beta readers, an editor, a cover artist and a lot of hard work. Do you know what the easy part is? 
  Picking out where the proceeds should go. The proceeds from the first book go to the Children's Advocacy Center. Book two....Everything goes to Pediplace. They provide healthcare to the children of North Texas who would otherwise have limited access to medical care. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. 
  Years ago, I did volunteer work as a pediatrician at Pediplace. At first, I thought it was pretty much the same as taking care of children at my clinic. The rooms had exam tables, otoscopes and tongue depressors. The patients had infected ears, tummy aches and high fevers. The differences were not obvious at first. Would you like to know what I found?

  Their sample closet of free medications was much smaller than ours. Now, these days, drug reps don't hand out a lot of free anything. But back in the day...at Kids First, we had lots of asthma meds, antibiotics...even diaper creams. And we could give them out to patients that needed help - those that couldn't afford the medicines. But the closet at Pediplace was woefully bare. Drug reps typically didn't drop off samples to this clinic.
  What else was different? One day, I was waving goodbye to a family after their child’s well exam. The little boy was crying so I knew he had received his shots. But something was missing. THE BANDAID. You know...bugs bunny, superman, pink camo. It's part of the deal. I pulled the assistant aside and reminded her. She whispered that the clinic had made cuts that month, couldn't afford bandaids. WHAT?
  Want to hear the craziest part? One day, I inadvertently discovered that the staff had not been paid in several weeks. As in NO PAY CHECK! And they were still working... loving on and taking care of those children...while desperately hoping for donations to go up so they could get a check and then pay their own bills- like rent and electricity! 

  Pediplace has come a long way since those days. But if you've lived here for sometime, you're probably not surprised. Our community takes care of their own. So here's how it works... You buy a book, prop your feet up and read a good story. All the proceeds from the book sales go to Pediplace. So they can keep curing tummy aches, soothing sore throats and...putting bandaids on boo-boos. And that's what real magic looks like.