Grace Carroll was just settling into her freshman year of high school when everything changed. A ruptured appendix rushed her to Lowell General Hospital. After initial tests, she was transferred by ambulance to Tufts Medical Center, where she spent the night in the ICU.
Her parents, who had been out of town, raced back to find their daughter hooked up to a tangle of tubes. “It was probably my parents’ worst nightmare,” Grace remembers.
A challenging hospital stay
The next morning’s emergency surgery revealed just how close she’d come to disaster. The rupture had affected her entire internal system, requiring extensive flushing. What began as one night stretched into two weeks as complications piled up, including a second surgery.
For a 14-year-old who should’ve been navigating hallways and making friends, it was a challenge of a different kind. “I was like, this is painful, this stinks, this is my freshman year of high school, I’m supposed to be with all my friends,” Grace remembers.
As if that weren’t enough, unexpected family tragedies made a difficult time even more complicated. Grace and her family ended up spending a memorable Thanksgiving at the Medical Center.
“They understood me”
But amid all the pain and fear, one team offered a lifeline: the Child Life Specialists. “With Child Life, they could understand me,” Grace says. “They were very good about knowing where I was at in my illness and trying to support my entire family.”
The Child Life team helped Grace feel comfortable throughout her ordeal. When she woke in the ICU, Bob, the beloved facility dog, was sleeping by her side, offering quiet comfort to both Grace and her worried family. During her daily shots, they’d help her manage her fear of needles with stress balls and a tablet for distraction.
The team found ways to give Grace breaks from hospital life, bringing joy and normalcy to her days. They’d bring her outside to a secure patio where she could escape the beeping monitors and feel part of the city again. They brought art supplies, organized special events and kept games and movies available. "It was always something different, and it was always something that had an impact," Grace recalls.
Most importantly, they saw Grace as a whole person, not just a patient. "They understood me, and they knew where I was at and where I needed to be met, which was super helpful."
An experience that inspired a calling
That hospital stay became Grace’s calling. Now a senior at Penn State applying to graduate schools, she’s determined to become a Child Life Specialist herself. College volunteer experiences led her to want to specialize in pediatric oncology, focusing on evidence-based practices—using proven interventions and a deep understanding of childhood development to support young patients through their most challenging moments.
Since her freshman year of college, Grace has been volunteering with the Child Life program at Lowell General Hospital, bringing the same comfort and compassion to young patients facing their own medical journeys. She helps organize donations, prepares age-appropriate activities tailored to each child’s diagnosis and supports special events like Santa’s Christmas visit. She’s also learning how to prepare the youngest patients for procedures, using stuffed animals and dolls to demonstrate IVs and other interventions in child-friendly terms.
“It has truly been incredible to see Grace grow into a well-educated and confident volunteer,” shares Bridget Migliozzi, Certified Child Life Specialist at Lowell General Hospital and Grace’s mentor. “Her dedication to our pediatric patients and their families exemplifies the psychosocial care that sets our program apart. She takes on every task with dedication and pride—we are lucky to have her on our team.”
For Grace, it’s about paying forward the gift that helped her through an exceptionally challenging experience. “Giving back and letting kids feel a sense of relief, a sense of normalcy—that’s super important to me,” she says. “I want to give back to Child Life the way they gave to me and my family.”
Want to help bring moments of joy and normalcy to patients like Grace? Your donation supports programs like Child Life that make a real difference when families need it most.
