Books to read when your child is in hospital

 

 

 

 

Posted by Jenny

This week I spend four days in the paediatric ward in the hospital. Our son, our beautifully spirited and kind hearted first born had collapsed and was unconscious for a few seconds. As this wasn’t the first episode, he was entered into the medical model so they could perform this test and that test to determine whether he had a faint or a seizure. Sweets and impromptu presents definitely have an important role to play in these circumstances. And it has to be said that the staff in the paediatric ward were fantastic.

  Nothing prepares you for the sudden overwhelming onslaught of emotions and consequences this brings. If given half the chance it’s the most isolating feeling in the world. I’m one of these people that will go into the “I-can-cope-with-this” mode, but don’t ask me how I’m doing, because I’ll crumble. It’s like the emotional equivalent of a switch that I can temporarily flick into a required setting when needed.

  For my son it was all a great adventure. He saw ships move on the curtains! (the anaesthetic for the MRI didn’t fully work; he became utterly stoned….)  He spotted an elderly man in a wheelchair and was convinced that it was James Bond. His rationale was that since James Bond is over 50, he’s an old man. Surely, the old man sitting in that cool looking wheel chair could be James Bond. If only that man could have heard him.

  As the days passed, my “switch” started malfunctioning. My focus went out the door, headaches increased in frequency and I was beginning to feel more and more like an overstretched string on a failing bow. At least he’s at home now.

 

 

  So what did I read while in the hospital? I read Adam Blade’s “Fang – the Bat Fiend” to my child. It is the 33^rd instalment of the Beast Quest series, his favourite books. He followed Tom, Elenna and their animal companions Storm the stallion and Silver the wolf on their dangerous mission to defeat evil Fang and was able to lose himself in the magical world of Avantia and Kayonia.



 (Top illustration: photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mondopanno/216411848/">mondopanno</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>)