Hospital Experiences

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From the time I was just a few hours old until I was about 17 years old, I was at Children’s Hospital in Akron, Ohio a lot. From surgeries to doctor appointments, to physical therapy many hours was spent there. I of course don’t remember the early days, I was taken there just after birth where they did surgery to close up the opening in my spine and spent about the first two weeks of my life there. I vaguely remember going for physical therapy I don’t remember learning to walk with a walker, I do know I wanted one with wheels on the front, but they said I walked to well. I remember learning to get up and down from the floor with my walker, and later on how to get up from the floor with my crutches.

When I was around three they decided to try putting me on medication to hold the urine in my bladder so I could be catheterized. I was one of the first one’s they tried this on and it worked very well for me. I guess you could say I was kind of like their guinea pig. Later I was able to get completely off the medicine they put me on.

Most of my 13 surgeries were done there. The two things I remember most about the admissions process was the hand puppet they gave you, I had several growing up and getting blood work done. Because of all the blood work and IV’s I soon started associating the hospital with getting stuck with needles. The first surgery I sort of remember was hip surgery. I was about three or four and of course had no concept of what surgery was. I remember laying in a bed and they were moving my leg all around probably to see what my range of motion was and I thought if this is surgery it’s not so bad. They only did surgery on one hip, but they put both legs in a cast. I’m curious to know with the medical technology we have now how they would do it. When I was little and in the hospital my mom would come stay with me all day and in the evening my dad would come up after work. There use to be a walk way that connected the hospital to the parking garage and we would go there and watch for him. The longest I was ever in the hospital was four weeks when /i had my spinal fusion. I remember being in a room on the fourth floor, I don’t know if it was in a newer part of the hospital or not, but I didn’t like it because I couldn’t see out into the hall like other rooms. And the third shift nurses were cranky! Once when I was there someone dressed up like Smokey the Bear came to see me and gave me an inflatable one.

Every year I would have to go to Myelo (pronounced My low) Clinic, it was an all day affair where my mom and I would sit in a room and all my doctors as well as a physical therapist, and psychologist would come see me and talk to me. We would always kind of laugh because the psychologist would ask my mom questions like was I able to feed myself while I was sitting there eating a sandwich. They also had me go to speech and hearing where they would test my hearing and have me do things like repeat a series of numbers. I always say that’s the reason I’m so good at memorizing numbers. At the end of the day they would all gather in a room to discuss what they had observed and then call me in and tell me what they had observed and how they felt I was doing. I don’t remember them saying much except the last year I went they said I needed to get my driver’s license.

As you can see I spent a lot of time sitting in the hospital, doctor’s offices etc. I know how boring it can be, if you need something to help pass the time my free printables page has coloring pages you can print.