I've joined the Miles for Miracles team to help the brave kids and families at Boston Children's Hospital.  Here is my story...

In 2016, during a routine prenatal 20-week ultrasound, my wife Erika and I received the news every parent fear, there was something wrong with Emily's heart. 

We were immediately referred to Boston Children's heart center.  While the next six months would be the most challenging (and stressful) of our lives, we always felt comforted by the fact that we had the best and brightest minds in medicine thinking and working toward helping Emily and our family through this difficult time.

As the weeks, (and our anxiety) progressed, things became more challenging. First it was bedrest for Erika. Then it was bedrest in the hospital. Then it was an emergency C-section. Then it was the NICU at the Brigham, with more testing and more bad news. There was a problem with a heart valve, there were life-saving medications that couldn't be interrupted. Then one night it was concerned faces, an emergency bedside baptism (performed by the on-call Rabbi I might add), and then a middle of the night transfer from Brigham and Women's NICU to the Children's Cardiac ICU via airbridge.

Soon thereafter Emily underwent a long complex heart surgery, then another, and another all while trying to do normal baby things like feed and grow. There were hours of us holding her, staring at the monitors, and praying. We got the occasional precious moment with Emily, a brother reading her a story, or teaching her about dinosaurs.  Ultimately all three boys wanted some "skin to skin" snuggling with her. These moments were for the most part very special until one of the kids dropped her down inside their shirt and we had to fish her and her breathing tubing out of the bottom. That was the end of "skin to skin" snuggling with the kids.

By the Fall, in October, after 6 weeks of prayers, countless hours at the hospital, amazing loving support from family and friends, and otherworldly surgical and medical care from the Children's Hospital professionals, nothing else could be done and it was time to say goodbye to Emily.

What struck us dramatically throughout that period was how everyone in our lives, our family, our amazing friends and neighbors, and especially the experts at Boston Children's seemed to know just what to do and say to support us. Somehow the ICU nurse new to make family handprints with the boys and their sister on Emily's last day which hangs in our kitchen to this day. The doctors new just how to communicate that we were out of medical and surgical options but made sure we were part of the shared decision-making.

We will forever be grateful to the amazing professionals at Boston Children's Hospital, which is why I am running the 2026 Boston Marathon on their team!

Every dollar I raise funds the very best medical care, breakthrough research and vital support services for sick kids and their families. Your gift will:

• help children from your town and across the world get a second chance at life;
• give kids battling the most complex diseases care they can't find anywhere else;
• fuel 6,500 researchers and scientific staff working to develop new treatments and cures;
• support patient programs, like music and art therapy, to let kids be kids, even during long hospital stays;
• help patient families in crisis with urgent needs, such as food, clothing and housing;
• deliver the most compassionate, leading-edge care to every child who needs it.

Please support my fundraising and help the incredible kids and families at Boston Children's Hospital.