Our New Second Home

They moved us to the Oncology ward in 7 east. Back then, Childrens Hospital was a big, brown, mechanistic building. It was eight stories tall and U shaped in plan. The bottom of the U was the front entrance of the building, facing 34 th street. The two arms of the U were the inpatient wings, east and west. In between was a 7 story atrium. Our first room on 7 east was in an isolation room in the northeast corner of the hospital. It has an ante-room with scrub sinks and two rooms with special hepa-filter ventilation. Spencer was put in there because they still thought he was going to get chicken pox.

South of the isolation rooms was another isolation area with 4 Bone Marrow Transplant (BMT) rooms. These had even stricter protocols on who could enter, what you had to wear, scrubbing, etc. Beyond these were regular rooms. The Isolation and BMT rooms were singles, most of the others were doubles. In the center was the nurses station, residents area, procedure rooms and other support functions. The typical room would have a bathroom when you first entered the room (similar to a hotel, only everything was handicapped accessible) then the two beds or cribs depending on the age and finally a built in couch at the far end that doubled as a bed. The east and south rooms looked out onto the old Civic Center, the west rooms looked out onto the atrium.

In addition to the couch, there were "easy" chairs that fold out flat. That way, one patient's parent slept on the couch and the other patient's parent on the fold out chair. Patient's parents were discouraged from both sleeping over as quarters could be cramped and also to give each of them some time off. Of course, some children didn't see their parents much at all. That was sad. A lot of people were from out of town and either stayed in the parents resource room on the 8th floor or at the Ronald McDonald house.

We were lucky in that we rarely had a roomate. I don't know if that was because of his lowered immune system (chemo will do that to you), or if it was because everyone liked us and worked to get us better accomodations. Still, since we had Jessica to take care of and also since we were both working, Sandra and I took turns. Sleep at home, take Jess to daycare, then to work, pick Jess up, go to the hospital and eat dinner together then spend the night while the other went home with Jessica. Rinse and repeat.

Our doctor was a Hemotology/Oncology resident from New York named Bruce Himelstein. He was a great guy and eventually became a friend. Actually, a lot of the people there became our friends. We went to the wedding of our primary (weekday) nurse, Suzanne. I played in a band with our secondary (weekend) nurse, Connie and her husband, John. Connie is still a friend to this day. And the rest of the staff was really pleasant and comforting. In light of the situations each of them had to face daily, it really is a wonder. With McDonald's on the ground floor, the bar at the Sheraton across the street, and Penn's campus two blocks away, we had all the accomodations we would need for the weeks at at time we would spend at the Children's Hospital of Philadlephia.