We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Erica Ryan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Erica thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Our 4th/youngest son, Westley, spent a total of 525+ days in-patient with 15 months of that being one stay. Spending many months trying to figure out what was wrong, enduring multiple procedures, tests, rounds, diagnosis’, medications, about every specialty, dozens of setbacks, and navigating how to live a day-to-day life of a parent with a sick child we kept our own notebook with all things about our stay. While we were at the hospital, we realized that we were spending much of our time communicating with others on updates to medications, plan of action and ensuring we were asking the right questions. We had no idea all the questions to ask when a physician walked in with a suggestion for a new medication or procedure. Eventually we extended to discharge with palliative care and we took our daily “notebook” of notes and what we learned both good/bad to compile them to help those in similar situations. Being able to hand something meaningful to another parent entering into a similar journey is so important to give them confidence as peace during a traumatic and overwhelming time in their family. We released the Hospital Stay notebook in 2019 on the 1 year anniversary of our son coming home from his long stay. The notebook walks families through the exact questions to ask, things to consider and items to track when at the hospital so that the family feels more empowered over the situation and has the right information to make the decisions that are key to their family members recovery.

After coming home we then had weekly appointments at various specialists, coordinating the many questions, concerns and other notes in a bigger lined notebook. After our son eventually passed away in April 2021 we used that notepad to help us organize our Medical Appointment book to better ensure that we could refer back to appointments with specific information, knew the changes/updates made, and had the next set of questions ready for the next appointment. We knew many families with kids who were in similar situations who needed this help so we filled the need that we had so that others could also feel that peace knowing all the next items were lined up for their appointments and quick referrals we ready at a moment’s instance, should a hospital stay or another physician want to know history.

While we wish that our notebooks were not needed, we know that giving these families practical help in their times of overwhelm and unexpected medical journeys, we are supporting families by utilizing the knowledge we gained by loving and caring for our own son.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Erica Ryan. I reside just north of Columbus, Ohio with my husband, our 4 boys (with 1 in heaven now) and 2 dogs. We enjoy attending our kids sports, our Buckeyes, and all things Cincinnati. I have worked as a Project/Product Manager for over 15 years and organizing complex problems into easy workflows and steps is my passion. My husband, Shaun, is an Accountant and also runs his own Beard Care Company (8 Bit Beard Co). We started Strengthening By Fire out of a need that we saw being unfulfilled for ourselves as our youngest son spent so much time in the hospital his short 3 years here on Earth. Taking my detail oriented process skills to organize everything we needed into one notebook we now serve families across the country who are facing Hospital stays and many medical appointments. We try to live life through our personal passions, one of which is serving others with our strengths. We tend to lean on faith and humor to guide us through our full lives as parents, full-time employees and entrepreneurs.

Our Notebooks:
– Hospital Stay Notebook- helps guides families through asking the right questions about medications, procedures, equipment and treatments as well as tracking daily rounds with ease.
– Medical Appointments Notebook- Helps keep track of each appointment with questions, updates, follow-ups, diagnosis as well as a quick reference for current medications and summary appointments sheet

They are all bought online at www.StrengtheningByFire.com and bulk orders for groups are available.

Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?

I had no experience in paper goods or creating books. I created the book first on notepaper with everything that we had tracked in our little notepad we grabbed from the car on the first day of our sons long admission. After gathering all of it together I contacted a friend who had her own notebooks for tracking therapies for kids with developmental delays. She was a wealth of knowledge and provided to me everything to get me started on the right path. I was then able to contact a local printer who I could send files to mock up my design (from Canva). The printing was minimally pretty and I printed off my own tabs, hand placing each one on the page with a magnet bookmarker and a hand written note to each order.

Once I was able to sell through the first 250 books I hired someone I had met through a ministry program to do design work which included creating built in tabs on the books and she also recommended a printer who was based here in the U.S (which was important to me).

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

While we hope that no one ever has to use our notebooks, we have had success with notifying local not-for-profits and organization’s that support those with medical conditions or diagnosis to let them know of the resource available for purchase. We’ve also had bulk orders from some organizations so that they can place our notebooks in hospital baskets they take to their membership. With the addition of the new medical notebooks it has been more widely utilized by these organizations.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.StrengtheningByFire.com
• Instagram: @StrengtheningByFire
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/strengthening-by-fire/

Image Credits
Kristen Nester Photography