Friday, May 25, 2007

Best Week of the Week

Well, Vampboy and I made it back from Chez Healing last night. Although it had the usual challenges, I have to say that life in the hospital is a different beast during the week than on the weekend, when I'm usually on duty.

For starters, the hospital is a noisier place during the week. Every bed has a patient in it, and Residents run around diligently after their respective Attendings and Fellows. The play room is staffed with Child Life Specialists, giving Vampboy ample opportunity to search for them through the halls. At one point members of the New England Revolution (league soccer team) came to visit, and all VB could do was try to coax the Specialist back to the play room with him.

Then their are those who VB truly considers to be Gods and Goddesses among us: the cleaning crew. Given my son's propensity for ceaseless vacuuming and sweeping, he spent countless hours watching with glee as the floors were buffed and trashcans were emptied. His favorite is a lovely women who always turns their encounter into a laugh-fest, speaking in a high pitched voice while dancing around the hallway, flapping rubber gloves and smocks in the air.

Lastly, there was the "snack train", which wheeled through the halls bringing patients -- and their parents -- a choice of cheesecake brownies or fruit and cheese.

What luxury! On the weekends, you're luck to get an ice cream cup from the patient and family kitchen. The play room is available but unstaffed, so it's a bit more quiet. All in all, I'd rather be there during the week than on the weekend -- but hopeful that soon we won't need to be there at all.

2 comments:

Francesca Giessmann said...

Dear VampFamily:
glad you are back home.. I have been following your week and from my own experiences, I also think that week days are better at any hospital.
Stay strong and all will be just memory soon! Thanks for visiting my blog! I know soon you will get your great news and life for Vampboy will be all fun and play!
all the best , i will be back soon
ciao
Francesca

Eliza said...

Hi there Vampdaddy! I found you through your comment on Cynical Dady, and feel like I should introduce myself since I spent last night staying up late and reading the entire Vamparchives. Wow. Next time I'm feeling sorry for myself in my little corner of "Holland" I'll think about some of the stuff I've read here and give myself a mental slap upside the head. I have one little one with a Mic-key button--this is going to sound weird, but do you have to pay anything for the replacement buttons? My Tube Childe just outgrew their old button size and I've got one in the outgrown size and a couple of extra ones in the current size (sealed in the packages, of course), and our HMO covers them at 100%...if your insurance does the same then nevermind, but if you have to pay an arm and a leg for the things like some do, give a shout and I'll see if I've got something that would fit Vampboy...I dunno if you'd be comfortable accepting medical supplies from a stranger or not (Chag can vouch for my relative non-craziness), but I always feel so bad about throwing out new, sealed medical supplies that we've "outgrown" knowing how much they can cost. Hope this finds you all as well as can be, considering. Cheers!