Friday, January 27, 2012

Grace and Gratitude: What to Do When Children Get Sick



Yesterday I spent the morning in the Emergency Room at a Children's Hospital with my son. His vague abdominal pain had localized to the right lower quadrant of the abdomen. His finger pointed right to the appendix and it hurt him to walk. Many breakthroughs came up for me. Let's discuss them.

1)Going to work in anesthesia you have to show up unless you are in the hospital. I found myself thinking, I can let him sit until I am done with work and then go to the hospital as I drove to my mother's. Then something caught me: this is sick.  He is your son. So I started calling others at six a.m. to show up for work for me. As I spoke to the nurse in charge of the O.R., she said, 'You have to call the boss even though he doesn't like to be called in the morning and tell him your son needs to go to the hospital." And I did.

2)Using my familiarity with hospitals to the benefit of a family member first we stopped at home to get a stuffed animal. We got a HUGE killer whale that is as big as my son. Why? Did you know a stuffed animal can go in the hospital where parents can't? The O.R. Or in my case, the CT scanner. The ER doc knew me from our mutual place of training. We got extra good care.

3)Trust the skills of  care team members  Grace is the name of the nurse who put the i.v. in my son. We were there at change of shift, the time in the hospital when nothing gets done, because the old team want s to go home and the new team isn't informed about everyone there yet. She let him touch and see everything every step of the way. A good pediatric hospital with let kids check things out before they do the procedure. He felt the tourniquet, the numbing spray, the chloraprep wash and only said the needle part might hurt and gave him practice pinches just to know. Another nurse came out of nowhere and helped hold the arm. And in one try, BOOM! it went in. Grace's smile was big and her bedside skills were excellent.

4)Everyone is a healer The Echo Tech saying, 'good luck' to the boy as he dropped us off in the holding room. The nurse who held our son and promised him a trip to the treasure box for being so brave. And the transport people! You know the ones that push the gurneys from  one test to the other? They have LOTS of chances to make a positive impact on patient care! The hospital is full of places to make a difference in the health of our patients! Especially the ones who are in touch with their own Human Energetic System, or 'aura', know Reiki and connect to Source every day.

5) Sometimes is it better to be wrong than right There was no surgery. I took the day off, losing income, and racked up HUGE bills because of all the deductibles on my insurance. But the peace of mind is worth it. I was never that good at diagnosing appendicitis anyway as a surgery resident. What he needed were the tests and he got the tests. When I spoke to the boss at three, he said when his daughter was the same age she had the same thing as my son. But the surgeon knew him, and said, most would operate but for us we are going to wait one more day. And she got better. Sure my pride took a back seat, but the bigger picture is my son's health. And he got better.

Namaste,

Reiki Doc

P.S. every step of the way, I had my hand on him as a continuous source of Reiki. Being a Reiki Parent can help when your kids are sick.