A Higher Calling
Inspiring ventilator-dependent kids and their families
When Mary Buschell retired from UMHS after 25 years as a Mott respiratory therapist, she got to take the “best part of her job” with her. Now, a 17-year-old boy is trying to take that job. Perhaps he can have it someday, Buschell says, but going to college first is a definite requirement.
Buschell is the director of Trail’s Edge Camp for ventilator-dependent children, a free camp she helped create in 1989 to support families caring for their children around the clock. The boy is a Trail’s Edge camper who is inspired by the idea that kids with ventilators can do just about anything they want. He should know. He’s been to camp every year since he was three.
Buschell, along with five others, started Trail’s Edge Camp after a poignant cry for help from a parent of a ventilator-dependent child. The mom said if she had just one week a year when she wasn’t responsible for the chores and the intense living situation, she’d have a chance to regroup and get things done. Thus, the idea for Trail’s Edge was sparked.
Eighteen years later, Trail’s Edge is still going strong with 32 campers annually doing a range of activities never dreamed of by children in wheelchairs with ventilators, or with tracheostomies. They ride horses, visit the petting farm, climb trees and play in a tree house. As camp director, Buschell has no plans of giving up her post.
“When you see those kids start rolling in, one van after another, it’s just overwhelming. It didn’t dawn on me until the last day of the first year that, if we had camp once, we had to offer it again. As exhausted as we were, we knew we were called to a higher level.”
One of the most rewarding things about camp, Buschell says, is watching the parents relax and trust that their children are in the good hands of volunteers who are physicians, nurses, therapists and rehab engineers. They also get to make plans, like taking a needed vacation or replacing the carpeting.
Though Buschell is retired, she begins working on next year’s camp in January each year. By May, she is working 10 hours a day to finalize preparations. She doesn’t describe it as work, though, but rather “the best decision she has ever made.” This year, she is especially excited about two students who are volunteering at Trail’s Edge for the first time. She’s confident the experience will have as much of an impact on them as it did on her.
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