A teenage boy who survived leukemia as a child has reconnected with the nurse who saved her life after moving to college.
This week Martin Dorey shared a photo of his daughter, Maggie, on Twitter, writing that he had just dropped her off at the university near the hospital where she was treated as a child.
“Maggie Dropped At” [university] in Bristol today,” he wrote in a tweet.
“From her new room you can see the room at Bristol Children’s Hospital where she battled leukemia six months before her life 17 years earlier. Tears of joy. Thank you NHG.”
The tweet caught the attention of nurse Charlotte Higby, who used to work as a pediatric nurse in Bristol.
During that time, she took care of Maggie.
Commenting on Dorey’s tweet, Higby said: “Wow, this is giving me goosebumps! As a nurse who looked after Maggie all those years ago, I can’t tell you how much this post means. Have fun Maggie!”
Shocked by her reaction, Dorey asked if Higby was one of the nurses who had helped Maggie after she had an allergic reaction to chemotherapy as a child.
“Wow!! Me too. Thanks for your message… can I assume you’re one of the Charlotte/Charlie team that intervened after an anaphylactic reaction to chemo,” he asked.
Higby confirmed she was the same Charlotte and told the father that she “has never forgotten that night”.
“Every year when I do my life support training and they ask ‘does anyone have experience with anaphylaxis,’ I think of Maggie,” she said.
Dorey also revealed that the nurses’ actions had a lasting impact on his family, with Maggie’s younger sister to Charlie.
“Until then, she’d be Lily. She’s a much better Charlie/Charlotte,” he said, sharing a photo of his daughters.
Higby said both she and Nurse Charlie are “delighted” to see Maggie attend college.
“When you work in that field, you often don’t know exactly how it turned out, so to see Maggie leave for… [university] is incredibly special,” she said.
The sweet exchange has since gone viral on Twitter, with Dorey’s original tweet garnering over 120,000 likes.
One person touched by Dorey and Higby’s posts commented, “This and Maggie’s nurse who responds is absolutely amazing and so lovely.”
Another user, a grieving parent, said Maggie’s story had made them “so happy.”
“As the mother of a child who didn’t make it 20 years ago, that makes me so happy for you,” they wrote.
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