Keep Cordelia In Your Thoughts

Hey kids, I don't usually ask much, but will you all do me a little favor? When you hit your knees in the next few days, could you please say a prayer for this little girl right here?



This cute little bugger is Cordelia Kmetz, who is the daughter of Timmy Kmetz, a fellow goalie in Dawg Nation and one of my better friends. Timmy's one of the few guys I can relate to- we text back and forth giving all the gory details about our games that we've played that week. He's a goalie junkie like I am- we both play at least three times a week, and usually more. He's 16 years younger than I am and lots better at the position, but he humors me while I rant, which I appreciate. Plus he's damn near as goofy as I am, which kind of comes with the goalie territory.

This coming Tuesday, Cordelia will be having open heart surgery at Children's Hospital in Denver to repair a chamber that has been faulty since birth. Without the surgery, her little heart could have serious issues in the future, so this just needs to get done, so everyone can stop worrying about it every day of their lives.

For those of you that aren't from around Denver, Children's Hospital is one of the top facilities in the western United States. I know if one of my kids ever needed help, I would take them there in a nanosecond (and I have, by the way). When all goes well with the surgery, she'll be there for 7-10 days, which I have to believe is pretty scary for a three year old (and her parents).

Timmy and I were talking at the ice arena last night, and he's no stranger to surgery, to say the least. He had bone cancer in his leg when he was a teenage kid, and has gone through 35 procedures. One leg is shorter than the other, and his shin looks like it's been hit repeatedly with a sledge hammer, but he leads a normal life and is one goal keeping sumbitch.

And he would go through every one of those 35 operations again if it meant that his daughter wouldn't have to endure her ordeal on Tuesday. For you guys out there that are parents, you know exactly what I'm talking about. There is absolutely nothing in this world worse than watching your kid suffer with a serious illness or injury. It's a horrible, helpless feeling, and you would give anything to take their place.

Something like this happened to me about 15 years ago. My oldest kid Mike was two tears old, and was leaning up against a window screen in the living room of the bi-level house we used to live in. Well, sure as hell, he pushed out the screen, and fell about eight feet head first onto a concrete patio.

When I got to him, the right side of his little skull was dented, and I knew we had a problem. We rushed him down to Children's, where we spent the longest and worst night of my life, waiting to see if he was bleeding into his brain, and whether he would need surgery.

Fortunately, his skull popped back into place, and there wasn't any bleeding inside his noggin. He had a fracture, but two year old kids' skulls aren't fully developed, so it kind of fixed itself. That's when I knew he truly was my kid- you can drop him on his head from eight feet, and not do any lasting damage.

But I'll never forget the anguish that I felt that night, watching him strapped to a board, scared to death, and looking at me to help him. I've never felt as helpless, and I'm sure Timmy and his wife Candi are probably feeling the same way.

So keep Cordelia in your thoughts, will you please? The Kmetz's have the entire Dawg Nation hockey family behind them (we have six teams- we're massive), and we know pretty soon, they're going to bring home a happy, healthy little girl with a good, working heart.