Nancy Martinez

The Gift of Life

When doctors in Lafayette, Colorado, told Mary Jaramillo that her 4-year-old daughter Nancy was dying, her mother pushed the doctor out of the house, scooped up Nancy and found a neighbor to drive them from Lafayette to Denver and to The Children’s Hospital. It was 1947.

Though Boulder and its hospital were only minutes away, Mary wanted to take Nancy to the best doctors for kids she knew of.

“I was a coal miner’s daughter and we did not have a car,” Nancy said. “My mother went door to door until she found someone to drive us to Children’s. My mother tells me, ‘I knew Children’s was a miracle hospital and I had to take you there.’” 

Children’s doctors told Mary that there was an infection located on Nancy’s ninth rib. They said Nancy would most likely die due to the severity of the infection so they asked if they could try a promising experimental drug to treat her condition.

Nancy’s mother said yes. The doctors administered antibiotics that would save Nancy’s live.

While penicillin had been in use since the 1930s, antibiotics were being developed for the first time. Just four years earlier in 1943, researchers had isolated a bacterial strain that helped them create the first antibiotic, Aminoglycosides. It was the first antibiotic effective against tuberculosis and other lung diseases.  

Today there are more than 80 antibiotics available for pediatric use.

Sixty-one years later, Nancy donated $1,000 to Children’s and became a Circle of Hope member. It is a way for her to repay the gift of her life. On October 1, Nancy and other donors were honored at the Celebrating Children’s Circles luncheon. Thank you Nancy!