Red grass is frowned upon and other things we learned at the hospital
Levine Children's Hospital
Yes, we ended up at the hospital because of the rash. Tuesday morning, we went into the pediatrician’s office, they took pictures of it and sent it to the Children’s hospital, and that, along with high urine protein, caused us to be admitted.*I* have been admitted to the hospital exactly twice in my life, the kid’s birth and my own. Needless to say, I am not well versed in such things. Here are some things I learned:
- Message delivery is important. My fabulous pediatrician gave me the news in such a way that I was really not worried at all about going. We went home, collected some things and went on over. After two attempted phone calls, I sent the husband got this text “Headed to the hospital”. In hind-sight, probably not a wise choice of words.
- They have valet parking. No kidding. I was so thrilled about this, I can’t even explain. The hospital campus is huge, and since we’d never been there before, I had no idea what I was doing, so I pulled up in front, some very nice man in a headset comes out and asks if I want him to park my car. Um… yes, in fact, I do. He gets my information and tells me to go inside. The lady at the check-in desk is all ready for me, scans my license, we get checked in and are in our room in what seemed like a matter of minutes.
- Taking blood from a five-year-old is much like performing an exorcism.
- Levine Children’s hospital has got it together. They have an outside play area on the roof, in-room tv, movies and video games, a play room that also has books, toys and games you can take back to your room, and activities for the kids. We even got to play Bingo and win prizes!
Oh, and about the red grass. The lovely Child Life people came to let us know that they were doing a Father’s day project. It was a flowerpot with a Styrofoam ball in it, and cut-out hands taped on pipe cleaners for flowers. So they have the Styrofoam balls out and green paint so they would look like grass. The kid sits down and paints some green on it, then goes over to the Child Life person and says, “OK, now I need red.”
Child Life (genuinely confused): But grass is green.
N: Uh huh. But I need red.
Child Life: That’s supposed to be grass.
N: Yeah… I want it to be red.
Child Life: But it’s not…
N: (rolls eyes, and BIG dramatic sigh) Never mind, it can just be green.
I let it go since she was obviously bewildered by this insane request for red grass.
Later, back in the room… “Mommy, just because grass is green out in the world doesn’t mean it can’t be red in my flowerpot, right?”
Right.
