Carli Tourdot has helped countless kids prepare for surgery. So, she wrote about it

ROCHESTER — It's a narrative almost two decades in the making, even if Carli Tourdot, a child life specialist at Mayo Clinic, didn't always know it would one day become a book.

"The story in the book is the words and concepts of my clinical practice (in) child life, supporting kids in the surgical area," Tourdot said. "I've been telling that story, in a way, every day for years."

At work, she talks with children about what they can expect before and after a surgery. When a family member's child was preparing for a surgery at a different hospital, Tourdot wrote a story that laid out that information, too. She reused and revised that template over the years for other kids.

"I just could never find a book that I loved and felt comfortable recommending to kids and families if they weren't