It all began in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) at the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital.

Stephen was on a 24-hour call shift for the neurosurgery service, and Irene was a senior resident in the PICU finishing her day shift. When Irene spotted an exhausted, frantic resident outside her workroom in surgical scrubs, she approached him with a Snickers bar—just as any good pediatrician would do. Stephen lit up, thanked her, and juggled a phone to his ear while texting on another and repeatedly silencing his endlessly beeping pager.

For the next three months, Stephen tried to get a date with the girl who had saved his life with a Snickers in the PICU, bringing her coffee in the afternoons. Irene, however, insisted she was too busy for a date—until one morning when the overnight junior residents sent her a picture of a box of croissants from her favorite local French bakery, which appeared on her desk at 4 a.m. Stephen had rushed to pick them up the night before when the store was closing, just so she could enjoy them for breakfast.