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for a complex medical procedure involved neither intense therapy nor authoritative fiat but rather an ability to connect and an affinity for creativity. And, perhaps, some fairy dust sprinkled in as well. “One of the best parts of my job,” Shinn says, “is helping kids develop those skills so they can cope without me; to kind of overcome and see that they can do things they didn’t think they could do.” — Thomas Durso is a free-lance writer who lives in suburban Philadelphia.
Kelly Wagner uses a doll and a child-sized proton therapy machine to help 3-year-old Collin Kratzer ease any anxiety about proton therapy, a type of radiation treatment that zeroes in on tumors while leaving adjacent healthy tissue alone.