Nestled in the Laurelhurst neighborhood, Seattle Children’s has been serving the children of Washington, Montana, Idaho and Alaska since 1907. While the hospital has had six name changes over its 100+ years, the care is the same. Children's website has a great presentation of the Top 25 Events in Children’s first 100 years.
I have a personal love for Seattle Children’s Hospital. Prior to working there for five years in the early 90’s, I was a volunteer there because I loved children. Working at Children’s was a rewarding job, yet a very sad one when we’d lose patients we grew to love. Now, as a mother, I see Children’s from a different light, but still have the confidence and love for the hospital I always did.
My son Jacob, who suffers from an airway obstruction, had his adenoids removed yesterday, along with having new ear tubes placed, by Dr. Thomas, an Otolaryngologist at Children's since 1978. These are really quite simple procedures if you compare it to the complex ones they do at Children’s, but as a mother, I was still terrified that something would go wrong, especially due to his breathing problems.
Even at 6:45 in the morning, all the staff at Children’s were upbeat and cheery, which is more than I can say for myself at that time of the day!
We were brought back to our surgery waiting room, where we were attended to by a surgery technician, a RN, Dr Thomas and the anesthesiologist. A couple more nurses stopped in and were flirting with Robby & Jacob as they played by the full glass door outside of the nurses’ station.
We are fortunate enough to have good insurance coverage, but there are many families that don’t. Seattle Children’s Hospital has year round calendar of events to help out those families that don’t have insurance so they can receive medical care. I will touch on the many events that go on throughout the year later in this blog as I want to give each one the attention it deserves. Along with raising money to help families, much money is needed for medical research, which will also be highlighted in a different post, to help eliminate childhood illnesses and diseases.
From all my experiences of a parent at Children’s and as an employee, I see nothing but compassion and people that truly care about the well being of the children and their families. Jacob’s surgery went very well and we were able to leave the hospital around 11:30. If you want to see a slideshow of all the pictures I took, please do and enjoy!
Expect to see many more posts about this incredible Hospital and Medical Center!
Thank you Seattle Children’s!!!
What I didn't write was they called me the day before and told me we had to be at the hospital at 6:45. I asked the guy if he meant AM??? We don't get up that early! Neither of you, especially you Robby, wanted to go to bed early on Wednesday, but I still got up a little before 6, got dressed, warmed the Jeep up and scraped the ice and then I kidnapped both of you while you slept. Threw on your coats and put you in the car. You both actually were awake the entire drive down and were very well behaved. Jacob, you weren't allowed to have anything to eat or drink after 4am, but luckily you didn't notice.
You were both very busy flirting with all the nurses that were outside our room. Jacob, you were a true trooper before, during and after the surgery. The only bad thing was they put your pulse ox on your RIGHT THUMB!!! You were very upset about that, but the second I saw you, I told them it had to be moved and they moved it so you could stick your little thumb in your mouth....that calmed you down, like it usually does.
The doctors were very happy how well you did during and after the surgery. You were breathing better than they expected and the possibility of you spending the night at the hospital went right out the window! Yeah!
Robby was so happy to see you come back and give you lots of hugs and kisses before he snuggled up in the chair with you to watch TV. We left around 11:30, brought Robby to day care and you and I went home. I was so excited to give you a milkshake since you never have had one and that was one thing they said I should give you. Do you know what you did with it? You threw it on the floor! I couldn't believe it. You were happy eating some yogurt and vanilla wafers and then you took a nice long nap. I took Robby's mattress out of his crib and slept on the floor next to you to make sure you didn't have any problems breathing. Your snored really loud, but didn't have any problems!
We picked Robby up from day care around 5 and then had a normal night of playing, laughing, reading and cuddling. I'm so happy everything went well. You'll have another sleep study in 2-3 months to see if removing your adenoids cured your breathing problems. If not, they'll take your tonsils out, which I heard isn't fun at all.
Today, Grandma and Grandpa came over to take care of you because I didn't want you near any germs at day care. I'm sure you are having a fun time while I work!
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