“In spring of 2024, my husband texted me from the emergency room of our local hospital. He had been feeling run down recently, but all of a sudden found himself too tired to walk back up the hill to his car after work. He had unexpectedly gone into congestive heart failure due to a congenital defect―a valve like a ticking time bomb―in his heart. The hospital was freezing and I was terrified but his nurses were excellent and tried to put us both at ease. One of them kept bringing me heated blankets and then let me in on the secret of her jacket with the glowing button: an Ororo jacket that she wears to work every day.
They treated my husband for fluid buildup that was preventing his heart from operating efficiently and sent us home. Three months later, my husband would have open heart surgery to replace his faulty valve with one from a cow. That larger, city hospital was freezing too, but while I waited for him to come out of the OR, I had my own Ororo hoodie to keep me warm. It provided such tangible comfort while I waited for the news, and the news was good: my husband’s surgery was a success.
Now, almost a year later, my hoodie kept me warm yesterday while we hiked a 4-mile circuit around a bog near our home―something that would have been unthinkable a year ago.
I don’t usually enter contests like this but I had to share this story. Ororo was such a comfort in one of my darkest times. The photo below shows us in our kitchen days after the surgery.”
