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More than a year after the death of her only child who succumbed with a critical illness while hospitalized as an infant last year, Danville resident Blair Patzner is seeking to aid other families in the Bay Area who find themselves in the same position she and husband Brett were in during their daughter Chloe’s short lifespan.
The Patzners became first-time parents on Dec. 29, 2021 with the birth of their daughter, and were eager to bring her home and kick off their lives as a family of three. But Chloe experienced medical complications early.
“She was fine except for she needed a surgery on her jaw, so we were told this because we noticed she was having these little quick dips in oxygen and then she’d go back up,” Blair Patzner told the Weekly. “They had an expert come look and they were like ‘it’s no big deal; it happens when they’re six to eight weeks in the womb forming.'”
The family opted for long-term specialized care at Stanford Children’s Hospital, where the parents stayed at the Ronald McDonald House and spent nearly 24 hours a day at their daughter’s hospital bedside. It was there that they first connected with There With Care, and eventually began taking the nonprofit’s organizers and volunteers up on their offers to help in any way possible as time wore on.
“We were so thankful to get into Ronald McDonald, and that’s how we met Lisa, because she reached out right away,” Patzner said. “She said, ‘I’m with this organization called There With Care and we wanted to provide you with essentials that you might need.'”
While Patzner said she was slow to respond and ask for help initially, spending nearly a year away from home led the couple to need essential items that they hadn’t considered, which There With Care volunteers always promptly provided.
“Everything they did for us I just look back and I’m like wow — they provided us with so much stuff, never asked us for a dime, never asked us for anything, just were always there for us,” Patzner said.
The family’s emotional, physical and material needs increased substantially following Chloe’s terminal diagnosis in March 2022, with support from There With Care enabling them to spend every last moment together before the baby’s death at 8 months old on Aug. 28, 2022.
“She was so strong,” Patzner said. “She fought so hard. Even to the day she died she fought so hard and she was so strong.”
Patzner sought to spread the word about There With Care to other families she encountered during the months she spent at Chloe’s bedside at Stanford Children’s Hospital, and she said that she was always planning to volunteer with the organization.
While the initial plan had been to do so sooner, hopefully after bringing her daughter home from the hospital, Patzner said that she is now in the process of bringing that plan to fruition more than a year after Chloe’s death. With her return to the workforce bringing her back to Palo Alto, Patzner said she was hoping to help support other families with children in the same hospital her family had spent months at.
“I said I’d be more than willing if you’re open because now I cover that area for work, so I can do drop-offs and whatever you need,” Patzner said. “Now that I’ve walked the walk of being in that hospital and being in their shoes, I want to return the favor and help in any way I can. And my husband does too.”
Patzner said she was still early in the volunteer onboarding process when speaking with the Weekly in September, but was looking toward expanding her presence and providing the same support to families that had been critical to her and her husband’s short time with their daughter.
“They just kind of fell out of the sky onto our lap,” Patzner said.
There With Care serves the Bay Area at large, offering support to families of critically ill children such as the Patzners throughout the region as well as in Colorado and the Middle Tennessee region. Its representatives announced that they had served their 10,000th family on Aug. 29 — one day after the anniversary of Chloe Anne Patzner’s death — in the 18 years since their inception in Boulder, Colo., in 2005.
“It’s humbling to think about the 10,000 families who have allowed There With Care to provide community and care during one of the most frightening times in their lives,” CEO and founder Paula DuPré Pesmen said in a statement. “We have learned that showing up and stabilizing a family with support during a fragile time makes a lasting, impactful difference.”
Learn more about the organization at therewithcare.org.