"Beyond Blessed to Have Cook Children's Take Care of Me"
A patient as a newborn, Caitlyn Moore got her dream job when she became a staff accountant with Cook Children’s Health Plan in 2022.
Caitlyn Moore first came to Cook Children’s at three days old.
Caitlyn was born premature, and her situation became more serious when she developed necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a disease known to kill underweight infants from the inside out.
The disease started in Caitlyn’s large intestine and, within hours, attacked her appendix and colon. The Waco hospital where Caitlyn’s mother gave birth did not have the tools to fight the disease; instead, Caitlyn, already severely jaundiced, was Careflited to Cook Children’s.
“Back when I was born in the 2000s, it was not a super common disease,” Caitlyn said. “And with Cook Children’s being such a specialty clinic, they knew this was the exact place I needed to come to, to get the care I needed and get the surgery I needed.”
At Cook Children’s, doctors scheduled Caitlyn for life-saving surgery; at seven days old, she weighed only three pounds and 13 ounces. Surgeons removed one-third of her intestine, part of her colon and all of her appendix. For a month after the surgery, Caitlyn stayed at Cook Children’s and her mother lived at the Ronald McDonald House.
Caitlyn said when her parents talk about her disease, they recall how terrifying the entire situation was; how quickly the disease progressed, how the doctors were not sure if their baby was going to make it, how confusing everything seemed at first. But Cook Children’s, she said, made sure the family was financially and medically supported every step of the way.
“It was a scary time, but they were so beyond blessed to have Cook Children’s to take care of me … like they knew I was taken care of,” Caitlyn said.
Three weeks after her release, Caitlyn was back at Cook Children’s for reconstructive surgery -- it was the first of many follow-up appointments and visits to Cook Children’s over the years.
When she aged out of Cook Children’s at 18 years old, Caitilyn was devastated “because they were the only ones I trusted with my medical needs.”
But Caitlyn knew her Cook Children’s story was not over. Even when she moved away from Texas, she was determined to work at the hospital that saved her life.
Her Dream Job
Caitlyn interviewed three times for a position at Cook Children’s. She did not tell them about being a patient at Cook Children’s as an infant -- she did not want that connection to impact their decision out of fairness to other applicants. But she was persistent; she knew this was her dream job not only because of her personal connection with the hospital, but also because she knew Cook Children’s is dedicated to its mission of positively impacting the entire community.
In August 2022, she got her dream job when she became a staff accountant with Cook Children’s Health Plan; she described it as “a full-circle moment.”
As someone from a low-income family who was on CHIP insurance, Caitlyn loves being able to help patients from a similar background. Growing up, she saw how Cook Children’s helped the community and people from lower-income backgrounds, like when her mother was able to stay at the Ronald McDonald House.
“I love working with my coworkers, and they all have the same mindset of wanting to do good in the community,” Caitlyn said. “My position, while I work with numbers all day, it doesn’t feel that way. It feels like I am on the sidelines making an impact.”
When Caitlyn told her parents that she got the job, they were almost in tears.
“(My mom) was so happy that I was going to get to work at the one place I have always dreamed of working at -- and still be connected to Cook Children’s after everything that I went through,” she said.
