A few of my favorite things...

I just wanted to do a post of some of Emmett's favorite things at the Children's Hospital. More often than not, he likes to be out of his room-especially when he's feeling well. When doctors or nurses can't find us in our room, there's a good chance we're at one of these places. During the first round of chemo (when the hospital was still new) Emmett was obsessed with the elevators. Heaven forbid he actually like toys like a normal kid. The doctors would ask how much pain we thought he was in and it would be hard for us to say. We'd tell them that he can be crying and fussy and seem miserable, but then we take him out to the hall/elevators and he's much better and happier. One of the doctors called it 'the elevator effect.' He still loves them, but not as much and I didn't get a picture of them, but there should be. We have spent hours roaming the hospital and have discovered lots of little things. I didn't realize we had found so much entertainment until I started posting and there are still a few more places I can think of.

There's a CVS in the lobby and once we let Emmett pick something out in the candy aisle.  Now, every time he goes near the lobby he signs candy and points to the store... and usually succeeds in getting us to buy him a new bag of  'pops' (dum dums).  He hardly eats them, but he likes to carry them around unwrapped and they get pretty fuzzy and nasty and full of lion's fur, so they need to be rotated fairly regularly.

This was a new discovery this last week! It's by the basketball court and there's a soda and a candy machine and then one exactly like this.  He always got excited to look in the machines and press the buttons, but once we actually bought something from it, he was in love!  'You mean, I just push buttons and candy falls out?!?!'  Micah was even starving enough to try this machine once and Emmett loved that hot food just dropped out of the machine!  How amazing!

When Micah was gone, I had to take Emmett into the clinic myself one day and his counts were unexpectedly low and we ended up having to wait a bit for results and then for a transfusion.  To entertain him, we were playing by the elevators right outside the Jimmy Fund Clinic and then we saw these things.  I rummaged through my purse and started cursing that I never use cash and scrounged up a nickels and dimes.  He had fun feeding the dinosaur and now I try to make sure we have some loose change to take with us to the hospital so we can add this guy to our list of things to do.

We didn't discover this right away, but there's a playground in a little crevice between the buildings and there's a passage way to it from the gardens.  Emmett likes to throw balls (and lion) down the slides and climb as far as his IV pole lets him

This is a totally random thing in the lobby.  It's kind of a holographic butterfly and changes from a red light to a blue light when you touch the button.  For a while, Emmett could hardly contain himself when he got off the elevators until he could touch it!  Then he would move on pretty quickly to the next thing.  (I miss his bed head;  he used to have the most amazing hair when he woke up in the morning!)

This is a medical records robot.  It is the coolest thing.  Micah told me there were robots in the hospital when we first got there and I thought he was crazy, but made it my goal to see one when he insisted he'd seen a few.  They go around to the nurses' stations periodically and someone puts a stack of papers in the back, then it moves on.  Despite probably 100 different types of machines and alarms that beep in the hospital, Emmett recognizes this guy's beep.  This last weekend, two different times, he was in the room totally involved in something else and would hear the faint beep from this guy and start freaking out and pointing out the door, wanting to go into the hall and find him!  (Don't judge-I'm often still in my PJs til lunch)

Sometimes they get stuck; they aren't the brightest robots.  One time he was stuck at double doors (usually they have sensors and RF communication and can open doors and call elevators without pushing any buttons, which is kind of creepy) so Emmett and I kept trying to open the door and get him to move again. During this, 2 hospital staff walked by and tried to hold the other door open, too, to help it (thinking we were being good Samaritans).  After 5 seconds, they gave up and told us we really didn't need to worry about him.  That's when I told him we weren't really worried about him getting to be where he needed to be;  we just wanted him to move!  We had nothing better to do and this was our entertainment for the morning!  Fun Fact:  on the back there are a list of DO'S and DON'Ts.  One DON'T is don't touch the robot (so I hope no one from the hospital sees this picture) but the one that always makes me laugh is the DON'T "put me in a closet or stairwell".  HA...wonder how many times that's been done?

This random fish is in the hallway when you go from Children's Hospital over to Dana Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic.  His love for fish started with goldfish crackers and now he's started to associate that with other fish, I guess!  He always puts his hand in its mouth.  I like to ask him where his eyes are-which he always gets right, then ask where its hands are-that kind of stumps him usually ;)

My parents live near the high school so we see lots of big yellow school buses that Emmett started to get excited about.  One day in the hall, he started saying "buh!  buh!" (which of course means bus) and I looked out and sure enough you could see all the shuttle buses parked at the curb.  I was surprised that he recognized them even though they weren't bright yellow and massive

Children's Hospital goes the extra mile and has the food trays delivered by train robots!  They are so cool!  We'd seen one or 2 on our floor before, but they are hard to catch.  One day I had the genius idea to go down to the cafeteria during meal times and we saw bunches of them!  Emmett LOVES them and the trains, along with 'bah' (ball), are his top two favorites right now. 

(Not my most flattering video and there's something stuck in my tooth obviously, but Emmett's so cute and excited that I had to post it anyways)

Emmett is in love with this basketball court near the playground.  He often wakes up first thing in the morning and asks for 'bah' and wants his ball and then wants to go out to the basketball court.

Micah started a new game-instead of just shooting hoops, he showed Emmett how high he could throw his little nerf ball-and landed it on the roof the very first time.  So this is Emmett pointing up to his lost ball.  He was actually pretty impressed!  Micah went and bought him a new ball and then did the same thing the next day;  luckily that one blew off the roof the next day and we found it under the bushes in the garden.  Then he did it with another ball and we have yet to see that one so we've lost 2 balls so far.  I think we're done with that game and we'll stick to just shooting baskets.  

     Oh hospital life, you are unique.  When we are all through this, we may look back at these things and miss them.  For now, they bring a little smile and distraction to our long hospital stays.  It's amazing to us that despite the fact that it's the hospital, it becomes very familiar and has a homey feeling to it.  

     At the beginning of one of our admissions, there wasn't room on our regular floor, so they put us in a random corner of the hospital.  I didn't want to be offensive to our nurse there, but I tried to ask if they would move us back up to 'our' floor when a bed opened up.  When she said probably not, I felt a little sad.  It made me feel better when the doctor said otherwise and within a day or 2, we were moved back up to our regular floor.  Oddly enough, it kind of felt like we were going home-back to nurses and staff and familiar faces and places.  

     About a month ago, we had an outpatient appointment at the clinic and afterwards, since we were already in the same elevators, we went up to our floor. I was surprised how excited Emmett was!  He smiled as soon as we got out of the elevator and started pointing where he wanted to go.  When we came around the corner, one of our favorite nurses was coming up the hall and Emmett smiled and pointed to her, as he recognized her.  He was excited to see the toy cars he likes to ride in, parked outside of patients rooms.  He kept pointing into the kitchen where he'd made microwave popcorn with Micah a few nights before.  He clearly feels comfortable there, despite everything he's gone through at the hospital.

     As we are on the radiation portion of the protocol, we've been going to MGH for proton radiation this week as an outpatient.  Next week we will be admitted as Emmett starts Week 7 of chemo (which should have been this week but his counts have been too low to start again). I'm a little sad/scared to be somewhere new and into the unknown again.  We could have stayed at the Children's Hospital and been transported back and forth by ambulance daily, which was tempting, but just too much.  Not necessarily what's best for Emmett to have to sit in traffic in a carseat and be woken up even earlier to get transported to appointments and deal with that hassle. 

     I guess I'm saying I hope these next 5 weeks we find our own routine again and things that make Emmett happy and great staff and fun things like the robots and that we get to a point that we feel 'at home' there, too.  So far, Emmett is really impressed with MGH's escalators, so we're off to a good start!