Abbigail Peters
Children’s Hospital family headed for D.C.
Four-year-old Abbigail Peters and her parents, Steve and Rita, will travel to Washington, D.C., June 16-18 as part of the National Children's Hospitals and Related Intuitions' Family Advocacy Days.
There they will share their personal experience during visits with state legislators about the importance of children's hospitals on behalf of the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.
A blog has been set up to document the family's preparations for the trip, and will be frequently updated during their visit to the nation's capitol. To read the blog, visit www.vanderbiltchildrens.com/blogs/abbigail. Live updates from the trip will also be posted on the Children's Hospital's Twitter account at www.twitter.com/ontheirway.
Family Advocacy Days is an annual event sponsored by N.A.C.H.R.I., which comprises 218 not-for-profit organizations of children's hospitals, large pediatric units of medical centers and related health systems, including those that specialize in rehabilitative care of children with serious chronic or congenital illnesses.
Abbigail was born 10 weeks prematurely and spent nearly three months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Children's Hospital. She was born with a small hole in her heart that cardiologists watched carefully until it closed on its own by the time she turned 2. She still visits the Down Syndrome Clinic for annual evaluations.