VANCOUVER, BC – Visiting the BC Children’s Hospital never gets old for Christian Dean.
The Vancouver Whitecaps FC centre back has been there several times now after joining the club in 2014 – his most recent visit coming on Tuesday with Crystal Palace FC players Jacob Berkley-Agyepong, Alex McCarthy, and Kleton Perntreou.
Dean spent nearly three hours at the hospital, first mingling with the kids and their families in the playroom and then making a few room visits. As usual, ‘Caps mascot Spike was the life of the party, but Dean stayed behind on his own for about 30 minutes after the official visit was over, catching up with a patient he first met in 2014 who had just relapsed.
Her face brightened up when Dean walked through the door.
“It makes you feel grateful about the life you have and brightens your day to see the kids so excited to see us, but being part of somebody’s life like that means something to me more than just coming to visit,” Dean told whitecapsfc.com. “Actually developing those relationships is very, very nice.”
He would know.
Dean has kept in touch with a few different people he first met at the BC Children’s Hospital. In fact, one former patient named Kenton, who’s now fully healthy, recently reached out to Dean after reading about his injury struggles on whitecapsfc.com.
“He said that he completely understands what I’ve been going through,” Dean said. “He’s happy that I’m over my injury and I’m happy he’s fully healthy. It obviously puts things into perspective. Mine’s not even close compared to what these kids deal with.”
For some of these kids, it’s a matter of life and death. That’s the unfortunate reality.
Another former patient that Dean and a few other ‘Caps became close with, named Kieran (pictured with Dean below), passed away late in 2014.
It hit close to home.
“It’s hard to see stuff like that happen, especially when you’re close with somebody,” said Dean, who put her initials on all his cleats.
For these reasons and more, the visits to the BC Children’s Hospital aren’t always easy. But they’re certainly meaningful – to say the least – and that’s what it’s all about.
