I wish I had duck feet.

This post is adding to a series of post I have slowly been working on talking about the things you can do to entertain your child while they are sick in hospital.

In the image of the book I wish I had Duck Feet Hayden has discovered a new use for latex gloves.  He had been choosing to have the book read to him lately.  Suddenly, in between boughts of nausia, stripping the bed of its sheets and being hooked up to IV fluids he produces this new to me look.

It was a great block of time because not only was Hayden laughing at himself but the nurses were laughing with him. 

It really is a great thing to be doing when you are sitting there in an ED department at 10.00pm

Sadly this was the first of two nights and three days in hospital. 

A Day in Hospital

Hayden needed to spend 6 hours in a planned hospital visit today.  He was having a renal function test done and that requires time to get it right.  The day went something like this

1. Arrive at the hospital, go to Daystay to get the needle inserted into Haydens port a cath
2. Go the Nuclear Medicine Department....wait
3. Have the special dye inserted into the port a cath access point (the vein)
4. Wait for two hours.
5. Have blood taken
6. Wait for one hour
7. Have blood taken
8. Wait for one hour
9. Have last blood taken
10. Go home

The hardest part of this day is that there are limited things to do at the hospital and Hayden, with a short attention span, did all of these things in half an hour.  Oh boy.  The rest of the time was simply difficult and tiring.

Here is the port a cath ready for todays action.

Having a ride on one of those $1 ride things.

Hayden got to particiapte in a holiday programme and made this fish.

In hospital again

The first day of the school term, I had work and Haydens school rings me at morning tea time to say that he is not well, he is vomiting.  I listen hard to what they say, excuse myself profusely from my days work and go collect him from school.  Sure enough I needed to take Hayden to hospital and naturally he was rapidly dehydrating as I took him into the hospital. I know for sure IV fluid and electrolyte balance medication will be required.

It had been many years since Hayden had been this sick before winter even started and I was really taken unaware.  DH was away overseas for work and it took a lot of planning to organise life for my other children so I could be with Hayden.

Naturally my rusty hospital entertainment skills swung into action and I was able to test out a few more ideas.

Firstly to add to my bag of tricks I needed to put a balloon and top up the little toilet bag I have for Hayden to play with.  It is the sort that you get off when you are travelling internationally by plane.   All sorts of goodies come in handie.  The bag I have has a pair of socks, toothbrush and paste ( Hayden loves brushing his teeth), lip balm, comb etc.  All things to have a little fun with.

Luckily Kids First Hospital have a wonderful team of play specialists who were on hand to help me entertain Hayden for nearly 4 days.  I can tell you that in addition to what I provided I have seen the same Barney (yes Hayden is stuck in a time warp and loves this character) DVD for two days solid.  I could just about repeat the dialogue verbartum.  Hayden was stuck in bed for three days unable to get out because he was hooked up to an IV pump through his port a cath, which really frustrated him and as he was unable to be medicated for his servere ADHD and feeling grotty certainly did not help.

So here is what a hospital stay looks like for Hayden and me

Hayden and I have just arrived in hospital and are waiting for the special nurse to insert the port a cath needle so bloods can be taken and IV fluids inserted.

After quite sometime waiting I drag out the latex hospital glove, fill it with water and we play a catching game.

The next day he is not a happy person and is giving Hospital Teddy plenty of hugs in between the nausia.

Of course I am not looking my best in hospital.  The bed by the window is had and drafty.  I am woken everytime something needs to be done, such as bloods or take his vital statistics etc.  It is not a good look.

On the final bedridden day Hayden is sure looking a little happier.  Here is with the next best thing to do with a vomit bag.  Hayden loves it.



101 Hospital Entertainment

So I missed my Friday blog spot about hospital entertainment.  This souly because I was busy using these skills and many more while I was sitting there with my son who had caught a grastro bug and for him this can be fatal.  this time nothing so extreme was imminent.

Anyway  I got a chance to retest all I have posted about.  Of course it all starts with the important hospital bag...

It is full of all the necessary supplies from the art and craft thing I might need at a moments notice to hospital teddy, a book to read all the personal needs and of course that list saying what I must put in at the last moment and an open letter.   Without this the night I spent in the hospital with Hayden would have been less comfortable that it was. 

This bag is kept packed at all times ready for the next visit.  I had been caught so many times without even a tooth brush or a change of clothes that this was necessary.  When my other children were much smaller they each had a little bag with a list of thing to pack in case their Dad was away and Hayden was rushed into hospital and they needed to spend the night with their grandparents.

So onto the photos of what it is like with Hayden when he is sick.

So he is sick enough to want to watch the little DVD player we take with us.  You can see he has been pricked for blood from his fingers twice at this stage, hooked up to IV fluids and has hospital teddy to keep him company.

Finally he is feel just a little better.  He is hooked up to both fluids via his peg and Iv fluids, the glove games have been in action and he has spent a little time drawing.  This is only the first day of his stay.

I found that the there are a couple more games Hayden really liked so will post them in the next couple of weeks.

Template Number 1

As the title says this is my very first template to share.  I am sharing this as a follow up from last weeks blog post about recording your childs stay in hospital.

I have chosen to share a template from this page.

I chose this page because it has space for lots of journalling and a photo.  You could even get your child to decorate the paper if you treat it like a sketch.

Hopefully this link will provide you with the download.  Please let me know if it does not work as I am such a novice with this kind of thing.

Well I hope this will be of help for you. 

A Photo Book to explain hospital visits

This activity is a little less impulsive but none theless if your child is in hospital for a long stay for frequent stays then perhaps there is a story to tell.  So a story book with your own photos just might be the ideal solution.  This will take a little work from you but the results will be long lasting.  Over the next couple of weeks I will put a couple of templates that can be down loaded just to help you get started.

While I am working out how to create a template or two for you I thought that I would just share some of the pages I have created

1.  First up is this blog post.  Diagnosis and Recovery

2.  Here is another page and blog post about medication

3.  What about this one It's That time of the year.

I have taken ages to sort through my blog posts to find these links so now I need to work out a different menu system on my blog.

Paper Folding

As promised I would write a post about recycling all those bits of paper. You know the ones that your child has drawn on while stuck in their hospital bed. The ones that are not for pinning on the board or giving away. I always have plenty.

First up there is the the paper planes and helicopters.  I know that everyone has there favourite way to make these so instead of confusing you all I thought that I would challenge you to find a new one to make.  I am linking you to this fabulous site, The Best Paper Airplanes.  It has both line drawing and videos to help.  I love the table of the best to make.  It is linked.

Anyway, today I thought that I would focus on a couple of other simple but fun little things you can fold and make.

So today the children and I had some fun making a couple of these.

Jumping Frog

This jumping frog works really well.

Rabbit
This link also has a little story that goes with making the rabbit.  As you can see mine requires some decoration

Pirate Hats


I have linked this just in case you needed instructions but any technique will do.  In fact this link has a whole lot of variations for you try as well.  Imagination can come into play.  What about a firemans hat, a gardeners hat, the list is endless.

Here Baby (teddies name.....yup it is a long story one that Andre can tell some time) models the hat from todays play.  Well the one that is till in one piece.

and of course my children had to make their paper planes but they were so hard to photograph.  I will have to try another day.

Colouring In

So colouring in is an easy and predictable  activity for hosiptal stays.  Hayden loves the idea of colouring in although he is unable to colour in between the lines he still loves the idea of this.  Of course the paper can be recycled in to something else which I will cover another time.

So here are a few of my favourite links for colouring in pages

Crayola

Playhouse Disney  (here you will get a copy of all the favourite and current tv shows with the matching pages to colour.

BBC colouring in pages

4KraftyKids

There are a huge number of other sites but these are the ones I frequent.

Please feel free to link me up to any others and I will add to my post.

With the selected pages I add to a zip lock bag colouring in pencils, a pencil to write with, some scellotape and a kiddy proof pair of scissors.

Bubbles to take to hospital

I am a little late with this post, I am sorry.

In my experence cheap and inexpense is the solution to entertainment at the hospital.

Firstly the mixture.  I use Morning Fresh dishwashing liquid, glycerol and water as follows

1.  450ml Morning fresh dishwashing liquid
2.  200ml Gycerol
3.  Water to add up to 2 litres.

(I know it make a lot but it keeps for ages)

I pour it into a very large water container for storage. 

As for the hospital container I use a small but easy to manage pot with a mouth large enough to poke a little blower in or lie it is.  Personally I love this little kit here from ELC as it has a bubble blowing tool just perfect for the new to bubble blowing child.

Of course all the necessary tool need to be kept in the zip locked bag ready packed in the 'hospital bag'.

Here is Andre with the bubble and one very successful bubble blower.

Puppets

Still on the theme of those gloves I have a new idea for you....Finger puppets.

You will need:
one pen or marker
one glove
scissors

Now cut the fingers off the glove

Then do what comes naturally, draw on the fingers.

and finally the puppet modelled not by my key target, Hayden but McKenzie because he was too busy chasing cats outside.

I find this really useful for entertainment naturally but also talking about the things that are going to happen or have been happening to Hayden.  He loves it when he is control of a puppet or two and I have one too.  He tries to tell how the puppet is feeling this way giving me a little insight to how things are looking from his point of view.

The Latex Glove

I write thinking how lucky I have been this week because it was a close call as to whether Hayden needed to go to hospital as he has been vomiting every morning since Monday.  Vomiting for Hayden leads easily and quickly to deyhdration and then hospital because IV fluids are needed for rehydration in the volume he would have required.  Thankfully today he seemed over It, (whatever It might have been) and we have moved beyond the alert.

So I am prompted to start simple. in my hosipital entertainment posts.  I sure might have needed these few ideas had Hayden not shown improvement.

The first resources you need are nothing less that the latex gloves that every hospital ward has and a permanent marker.  I keep one in my ready packed hospital bag.

Then you do what comes naturally with these two items.  Draw.  This one I quickly did when we were in at another of the many Consultants appointments at Starship Hospital, that Hayden has.

Hayden loves these.  Sometimes we make birds or monsters.  Sometimes he has the sole control, which an be a little dangerous as permanent markers are water resistent.

Of course the trusty glove can be used for other things.  I am well known for making a cricket ball out of gloves.  This can be so much fun but be warned,  it takes a lot of energy on my part to keep it going if it is a popular choice.

Here is the trusty cricketball.  It is about the size of a tennis ball and hard as concret but way too dangerous for any hospital ward.  My version is much more fun. 

Take your glove and put a little water in it.  Now this is not an exact science but if you put enough water to fill the fingers up to the knuckles and tie a water tight knot you will be ready to have fun.  The water gives the glove ball direction and unpredictabiliy. 

Now here is what to do:

1.  Give it a spin.  Look at that stretch and then the delight on your childs face.

2.  Bowl it.  It works just fine.

3.  If you tie the knots in the fingers and thumb then it looks great when it is thrown.  You might even need to stand the corridor to bowl that ball.

All in all this can be very infectious especially on those days when your child is bed ridden but feeling a little better and acting twice as bad as when they were at their worst.

I will try and take some more photos tomorrow to add to this.

In the mean time I hope that you don't need these ideas anytime soon. 

101 Entertainment Ideas for Children in Hospital

I have been encouraged by friends to keep track of my ideas for entertaining my child, Hayden, when in he is in hospital for his prolonged stays.  So finally I have taken the plunge and thought that I would post a little introduction to it all here.

I know that Hayden is a little unique in comparison to the rest of the world.  Well more unique than most that is.  He is 7 years old, congnatively a 2 well maybe a 3 year old, and more physically able than Neurologists originally predicted after his signifant medical event in 2006.  In fact he is as strong as any 7 year old.  Along with the many medical things going on in his life he has acquired ADHD at the extreme end and uses medication to manage this and save our sanity. 

Behaviourly this is where life gets tricky.  When Hayden is hospitalised it is usually because has a gastro bug or a serve cold with both causing vomiting.  The behaviour drug adds nausia and that means when in hospital no behaviour drugs.  It is terrible.  Nothing worse than a hyperactive ADHD child who is feeling grumpy, hooked up to IV machine for more than 24 hours.  Then to make it worse the Doctors dont like to keep him hospital too long in case he catches something more to prolong his stay.  Often he is kept in to ensure that his electrolyte levels are normal then he is sure bouncing seeing like there is nothing wrong.

So if this sound like something that could be useful to you, you might want to drop back and see what it is that I have found works for me.  I have had years of practise to refine my ideas and would love to add to my ideas too.

Image of Starhip Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand.

This image is courtesy of wikimedia here are the credits.