Sticks and Stones

Epilogue

www.DailyTrendsInsight
Title: The Successful, Wonderful, Very Good Life of a Cardiac Surgeon and a Hockey Player
Author: Lucy Sawyer
Date: March 8, 2028

I don't make a habit of rooting for couples in real life.

Between the fact that it's an invasion of privacy and it's just slightly creepy, I simply don't know these people well enough to be this invested.

But here I am, obsessed with a cardiac surgeon and a hockey player.

Before you click out of this site, hear me out.

In all honesty, I don't even remember when I stumbled across this couple. I fell down a rabbit hole one day and just found them.

First, I found some article about this hockey player named Brady Parker who was apparently attacked the night before his championship game. The incident nearly cost him his career. His knee was in such bad shape that most people assumed he'd never play the game again. And then the next year? He won the championships.

I had to know how. Why? Because it was two in the morning and I guess I don't value sleep. After looking at his social media, I found this one girl all over it. And I mean all over it. He posts her so many times that I thought I clicked onto her account by accident.

Tatum Hartley. She's a heart surgeon and has just as many photos of the hockey player on her feed as he does of her. And after some searching, I found a blog post from the doctor who Tatum worked with at the PT clinic at their university. And it just so happened to mention how she was tasked with Brady's PT plan. I was hooked immediately.

I then spent the next two hours catching up on their lives. I'm not big into hockey, but Parker has more followers than I would've anticipated for a hockey player. Hartley even has quite the following. I guess the medical influencers were doing better than I thought they were.

And get this: Tatum just won a Medi Award. At twenty-six. She's the youngest surgeon in the country to win this award. That is unheard of. It's a cardiovascular excellence award. I looked into it and the youngest person before her was thirty. She won it at twenty-six! That is absolutely insane. She won it for research into dilated cardiomyopathies. She spoke about how her mother struggled with the aforementioned disease and how everything she accomplished was for her mother. How could I not be obsessed with this woman?

And then Brady. For years, Parker has been renowned as one of the best players in the league. Players all over are motivated by his story and his resilience. It turned out that the player had fallen that night and was not attacked, but his recovery still inspired people. He spoke a lot about how his pride nearly got in the way of his recovery and if he didn't focus on healing, his knee may never have gotten better.

Brady credits it all to his now fiancé, Tatum. Every time he speaks about her, it sounds like he's rehearsing his vows. But it seems that she's just as smitten. When she was accepting her award, she could barely get through the section where she thanked him. I reached for my tissues more than once.

If you're looking for a new couple to obsess over, I highly recommend these two. And get this: apparently they absolutely hated each other at first. That somehow makes things even better.

And as the person who got you all hooked into a certain singer and baker, I believe I have some credibility here.

It seems that Tatum and Brady have the perfect life. Of course, no life is really and truly perfect. But I can't help but admire their story. Their love story and success are both an inspiration.

The couple did well in proving that yes, sticks and stones can break your bones. But mending them is an even bigger feat.