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Beads that spell c-o-u-r-a-g-e - Arizona Daily Star
Thirteen-year-old Hailey Lugo lightly touches her beads - white for chemotherapy, beige for bone-marrow aspirations and one with a face design for hair loss.
She then picks out the most special beads, the glass ones. They are for acts of courage.
"The acts of courage are for things I didn't think I had the courage to do. I didn't think I'd be able to get past a reaction where I stopped breathing," said Hailey, who lives in Nogales but has been at the Diamond Children's Medical Center in Tucson for eight months. "I also had an infection that went to my brain. It was scary."
On Tuesday, Diamond Children's became the 115th U.S. hospital to join the Beads of Courage program. The program was started by Jean Baruch, 37, a University of Arizona College of Nursing graduate.
The program is considered a clinical intervention for children coping with cancer and other serious illnesses. In other words, it is part of the child's healing.
Beads of Courage is what's called "narrative medicine," Baruch explained as she helped Hailey with her beads.
The children are able to tell their stories using their beads, from getting a needle to making it through an amputation.
"As humans we have a need to tell our story. This is a way for kids to tell the story of their journey."
The program is for children who are in the hospital for long-term care, and the average child has 500 beads on his or her strand, said Baruch, whose program is now in 150 hospitals and six countries worldwide.
The Kiwanis Tucson-Sunshine Club is financing the program for Diamond Children's. The hospital will now participate in all aspects of Beads of Courage, including a "bead caring" program for the staff.
"It's a way to acknowledge what the caregiver is doing," said Lori Throne, director of women's and children's services at Diamond Children's. "There are staff members who are with children as they are dying and talking about their last wishes. ... It is so hard on them."
Some of the children were collecting beads retroactively, for treatments they'd had throughout their lives. Robert King, 14, had a liver transplant when he was 7 months old. He collected red beads for blood transfusions, black for hundreds of needle "pokes" and purple for infusions of medicine.
Hailey came to a launch party from her hospital room wearing pink Hello Kitty pajamas, a sock monkey hat and a face mask to protect her fragile immune system. She has leukemia.
Baruch told her she could choose a glass bead for having the courage to come to the party. Hailey smiled and chose a flat bead made out of blue glass. The seventh-grader then chose another special glass bead - a clear, round one with pink and purple circles, for her mother.
Baruch has created bead programs for parents and siblings, too. All of the bead strands begin with the person's name spelled out in square beads. Some are necklaces; most are kept as a treasured collection.
"It's about a journey," Throne said. "It says, 'I have been through a lot.' "
Beads of Courage
Contact reporter Stephanie Innes at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 573-4134.