Two Miracles

In September 2000, our daughter Fiona was born with a life-threatening heart condition.

Within days, my wife Donna and I found ourselves living every parent's nightmare. Instead of bringing our newborn daughter home, we entered a world of intensive care units, machines, surgeries, doctors, and decisions no parent is prepared to make.

Fiona's heart was failing. At one point, ECMO—a machine temporarily doing the work of her heart and lungs—was helping keep her alive. The odds were frightening, and there were moments when we didn't know whether our daughter would survive.

She did.

After another open-heart surgery at UCLA in February 2001 and 33 days in intensive care, we were finally able to begin imagining something we had almost been afraid to hope for: a normal life.

For the next decade, that is exactly what we tried to build.

Ten Years Later

In 2011, our family was blindsided again.

This time it was our youngest son, Jackson.

He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.

Once again, our family entered a world of hospitals, fear, uncertainty, and the possibility of losing a child. Jackson endured months of treatment, and eventually his best chance for survival came down to a bone marrow transplant.

His donor was his sister.

Fiona.

The little girl whose life doctors had fought so desperately to save a decade earlier was now helping save the life of her younger brother.

On September 27, 2011, Jackson received Fiona's bone marrow.

That is where the title Two Miracles comes from.

Why I Wrote Two Miracles

There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after.

For my family, there were two.

The first came when my daughter Fiona was born with a life-threatening heart condition. The second came ten years later when my son Jackson was diagnosed with leukemia. Each journey pushed our family to places we never imagined we would have to go. Along the way we met physicians, nurses, friends, family members, and complete strangers whose compassion and courage forever changed our lives.

For years I carried these experiences with me, unsure if I could ever find the words to do them justice.

Eventually I realized this book wasn't simply about the miracles my family experienced. It was about the extraordinary people who make miracles possible every day. It is a story about hope when hope seems impossible, about resilience in the face of unimaginable hardship, and about the quiet acts of kindness that often become the turning points in another person's life.

My hope is that readers will finish this book believing that even during life's darkest chapters, there is still reason to keep moving forward. That ordinary people can have an extraordinary impact. And that every life—no matter how difficult its journey—has a story worth telling.

If Two Miracles encourages even one person to face tomorrow with a little more hope, then writing it will have been worthwhile.