Malia Moore

I am now in ICU. What a different place than ER. The ICU is what you would see back home. Everyone is wearing gloves and masks and the enviroment is sterile. Thank goodness. We met the Dr. in charge for the night. Every day the doctors rotate so I do not have a doctor that is overseeing just me. The doctor that evening promised to take good care of me. My mom and dad can not be with me all the time. Only one parent is allowed into see me at a time. My parents have to have special permission to come in and out of the hospital. There are guards at the entrance of the hospital monitoring everyone that comes into the hospital. They are like drill sargeants.

The Children’s Hospital here is 45 years old. It is very well respected and we have been told ranked #1 in Latin America. They do a good job of taking care of kids but a lousy job in taking care of the parents. Let me explain. There is no cafeteria, no vending machines and no place for the parents to congregate at all. The guard the other day confiscated my dad’s chocolate bar. No food whatsoever is allowed in but my parents have become sneaky in that department. The waiting room for parents in ICU is basically outdoors. On the other side of the wall where I am there is a row of plastic chairs. There is no wall in front of these chairs but a chain link fence. We are on the 4th floor and although my parents have a nice view of the mountains it has been very cold and windy during the day and even colder at night.We live in the tropics but my mom has been complaining that we might as well be in Canada for as cold as it has been!  My parents have not left my side until they are not allowed in ICU.

Fortunately my mom and dad met a really nice orderly named Juan Carlos. My mom jokingly asked him one night if he would rent them a hosptial bed. There are extra beds lined up in the hallway. He smiled at them and gave them the shhhh sign and went off for a while. Later he came back with a plastic mattress. In the far back corner of the hallway are four nicely hidden chairs. He threw the mattress over the chairs and then put a sheet down for them. Mom and dad take shifts coming and going during the night to be with me so at least they now have a place to lay their head.

My granny came to visit me. We were planning on bringing in the New Year together with Paw Paw Brown and my cousin Casey. Oh well maybe next year! Am glad to see my granny she has been great moral support for my mom and dad!

I wonder how long I will be in ICU?

Malia

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2011 at 9:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.