You Might Live in a Hospital If - Your Daughter Has a Reputation

When you’re the father of a daughter who “has a reputation,” the first thing you’re supposed to do is buy a shotgun. Luckily it’s not that kind of reputation.

When you’re in the hospital you have very little privacy, and the standard recognition of night and day do not apply. They do their best. You get a curtain. But there is no knocking; “Is this a good time” is rarely uttered; and when it is “I’ll come back later” is never the response you hear.

Except for Miss Molly.

Now don’t get me wrong, we still had to live by the same rules as everyone else, but as time wore on we started to notice some changes in the routine. It appears you just have to be vocal; express your concerns. And in this case Molly was the first to do so. Here is a quick list of some of the things we noticed:

Every hour the nurse is supposed to measure and record the patient’s vital signs. Molly was not a big fan of this. So little did she enjoy this process that most hours they would leave the blood pressure line blank, because Molly wouldn’t calm down long enough to get an accurate reading. Eventually, we noticed that nurses were actually sending their aids in to take the vitals.

IV teams respond as needed and go all over the hospital changing IV needles, etc. Naturally no one likes being poked and prodded. Especially when it happens as often as little Molly had to deal with it. She would always let the IV team know she would rather they not be doing what they were doing. After a couple days we noticed that the IV team would arrive much sooner after being called, and when they got there they would ask us questions about preferences and where veins are best found. After a few more days we realized teams were responding without being called, just to check in, and saying things like, “oh we know all about Molly Brown.”

Even though she was hooked up to a number of machines, we were able to take Molly out of her bed and hold her fairly often. Since she likes to snuggle so much, this often calmed her down. Doctors round once a day, on their schedule. At first we used to leave the room and give them their time to meet. As time passed we would stay in the room, but stand clear of them. Then eventually, it seemed they were making rounds more on our schedule. They’d meet as a group outside the room and then one would come in to check Molly out. And if Erin was holding her the doctor would say, “no don’t put her down. I’ll check her right where she is.”

You know what a Boppy is? Well it says right on the tag “NOT FOR SLEEPING.” Certainly a hospital is not going to allow a baby to sleep in something that clearly says it shouldn’t be used that way, right? Not so much. We let Molly sleep in her Boppy at home, and we told the nurse that one of the first nights after surgery. That nurse decided to bend the rules a bit for the sake of comfort. The next day we gradually worked it into a new nurse’s head that the Boppy was a good way to settle her down. By the third day it was on her chart that she should be in the Boppy more often than not. She still sleeps in that very same Boppy at home.

It seems you just need to yell a little bit.