The Sticker

Children’s Medical Center has a policy that they give every person who don’t work here a sticker to wear. The first time we came into the ER the sticker people weren’t at work yet. So we spent 14 hours in the ER before going to our room. Right before we went up to the room I ran out to the car to get Avery’s bags.

He was a pretty sick puppy and I had to leave him alone so I was in a big hurry to get back to him. As I passed a desk, a woman asked if she could help me, I said no and hurried by.

I spent several days in the hospital with him before I went back to my car. Now I had been all over the hospital without a problem. So when I came back in, again a woman asked if she could help me. No I said I was good. She wanted to give me a sticker. No I was good and knew where I was going and really I do shower and change clothes every day did I really need to come to the front door and get a sticker every day?

So we were discharged after 15 days and went home for our 26 hours before coming back to the ER. Again it was the middle of the night and we were rushed to a trauma room with chest pains and him passing out so there wasn’t anyone at the sticker desk. We stayed for the three days and after taking his belongings to the car and coming back only to return the cart to the nurses station they wanted to give me another sticker. Ok seriously at this point stick your sticker I don’t want it and I’m not going to wear it. We’re leaving, I don’t need it, it’s stupid.

Five days go by and we find out we are being readmitted. Again Avery can’t walk and is in severe pain. We leave Texas Scottish Rite where our clinic visit is and head to Children’s. Scottish Rite gave us a wheelchair to use and when we were leaving she told me I could take it to the car and leave it in the lot, that security would pick it up. When we get to Children’s I have to leave Avery at the valet stand and find a place to park. I can’t afford valet parking and we are going to be here for three days so off to green parking I go.

So twenty minutes later I have parked the car and am trying to get across the sky bridge to get my son. Honesty, I am a little worried leaving him alone for so long. One he is in a lot of pain and two any thing could happen to him. I didn’t do real well with the sky bridge cause I’m waking on the part where the cars drive across. lol Our bags are heavy and I’m realizing I should have left them with him when I dropped him at the door.

I find Avery and make it into the hospital. I am trying to remember if admitting is on that floor or the lower one and someone at the big round how can I help you desk asked if they could help me. Now they are at least 30 feet away and I said I was looking for admitting. She points to where it is but says I must come to her first. I said I have to go all the way over there? I’m freaking tired, this is the second hospital today and I’ve just made a journey from the parking garage and my son can’t walk.

So I walk over and she tells me she has to give me a sticker! Seriously, you need me to have a freaking sticker. You called me and my son who can’t walk over for a sticker? I said whatever I’m not wearing your sticker, my son can’t walk can we get a wheelchair? They are so rude, they mumble about the wheelchair and say something about they need to know what room we are going to in order to check the wheelchair out to us. I’m sorry I don’t know what room we are going to, remember we are on our way to admitting. So she wants my cell phone number, oh crap I left my cell phone in the car! It’s miles away in the parking garage. ahhhhhh So I asked did someone want to go to green 4c and get my phone out of my car so they could call me on it? Ya, no takers on that one. So they write down my name and the wheelchair number and tell me I have checked out this wheelchair. A very nice man walks up and helps me with our bags and the lady pushes Avery to admitting. I set everything down, including my bag with the stupid sticker on it and run back to the car for the phone.

As I come back in the hospital, the same people ask if they can help me. This time I just say no thank you I am fine. They are yelling they want to give me a sticker and I say I got it you just gave it to me and they yell I’m not wearing their sticker. Ok at this point let me say that Hell will freeze over before I wear that sticker.

I have spent 18 days here and had three admissions over the past 3 weeks. I am here because I have a very sick child. I’m not here for a vacation, I’m here because my son was just diagnosed with a chronic illness. We have been followed by seven different ology’s and I have spent 3 weeks of terror worrying about my child and you are worried about me wearing the second sticker you have given me in 5 minutes when you know you gave it to me and that I just had to run back to the car for a phone and have once again left my child alone in your hospital!

I ignored them and went back into admitting because I really don’t have time for your nonsense. I need to get my son checked in so I can get him into a room so I can get the medicine started that is going to take away his pain and make him able to walk again. Moments after I sat down, three, yes three security guards rush into the room and start looking around. Ya they called security on me. I got up and said, “seriously”? “They had just given me one sticker and I didn’t want a second one,” as I showed him the sticker on my bag. The security guard looked shocked and said that is not what we were told! He suggested I call someone and complain.

Security left and we got a room assignment and headed to the floor. The nurse got him out of the wheelchair and took it. I almost asked for a receipt.

At 9:30 pm, about 7 hours after we came into the hospital, the phone in the room rang, and I answered. The voice on the other end told me the wheelchair I’d checked out hadn’t been returned and they wanted it returned by 9:30. I think my head almost fell off. “You’re calling me about the wheelchair, seriously?” I told them the nurse took it and I would go talk to the charge nurse. As I got to the nurses station, the phone there rang. I told the charge nurse what was going on and she was shocked. She said she would look for the wheel chair and not to worry that if they called back tell them to call her. She came and told me they nurse had the wheelchair because Avery needed to go to x-ray and he couldn’t walk.

Now I get wanting to know the people in your hospital are there for good intentions. But I have a sticker on that says B4, because I have a child on that floor I can still go anywhere in the hospital. Tons of people are walking around with stickers that say admitting or ed and they are in a room on a different floor. So how about some compassion? Isn’t this a Children’s hospital. We’re here because we have sick kids and if you see a child can’t walk and needs help do you really make them walk further so you can give their mom a sticker? Couldn’t she have brought him a wheelchair and helped us to admitting and then brought me a sticker? Don’t I really have more to worry about than a sticker?