By Heather Barrow
The last places on Earth I would want to spend Christmas or any other holiday is in jail or the hospital. While staying out of jail is completely within your control, being admitted to the hospital is not. On a great day, being confined to a hospital bed or room can be difficult. On a holiday like Christmas, it can be depressing for even the most upbeat patient. While there are millions of people who will be spending the holidays in the hospital, HRH bed rest moms and NICU families are on my mind this holiday season. I want to make sure their hospital celebration is just as special and memorable as if they were at home. If you or a loved one is spending this Christmas or New Year’s confined to a hospital bed, here are five tips to ensure your hospital holiday is a great one:
1. Decorate the hospital room. If you are like me and go overboard decorating during the holidays, being in the hospital does not excuse you from your Clark W. Griswold duties. True, Christmas is almost here but you can still decorate and leave them up through New Year’s, just like you do at home. From a Christmas tree to festive lights, you can turn your room into THE place for hospital staff to see, which will lift your spirits and visitor count. I love the idea of punching holes in Christmas cards to make garland to hang around your room, its easy to do and can decorate a whole room.
2. Bring your traditions to the hospital. You can do almost anything from your hospital room, from decorating holiday cookies to tracking Santa to having your very own Elf On The Shelf. Every holiday tradition should be relocated to your hospital room to ensure you don’t miss out on your favorites. I was on hospital bed rest during Easter and my daughter Claire decorated eggs, and did an egg hunt in my room. While I still cringe at the ones hid in my bedside commode, it was the best Easter egg hunt ever.
3.Exchange gifts with hospital staff. When you are not in the hospital, and you make your gift list, who is usually right after your family? In my house, it’s the people that do the most for our family during the year, like our children’s teachers. When you are on hospital bed rest or in the NICU, those people are your doctors, nurses and hospital staff. Think of something thoughtful you can give your favorites, keeping in mind you don’t have to spend a fortune. You could give them a card with a thoughtful message, some of the Christmas cookies you decorated or homemade ornaments. In this situation, it really is the thought that counts.
4. Make extra food for your neighbors. If you are lucky enough to have a family who prepares a holiday hospital feast for you, have them make extra for others who aren’t as fortunate. Whether you share with the hospital staff who sacrifice spending time with their family to take care of you, or a hospital neighbor whose family can’t make it to see them, your gift will come back to you and your baby. The best way to cheer you up is to cheer someone else up, trust me it works every time!
5. Put things in perspective. While it is easy to fall down the slippery slope of self-pity during the holidays, remember there is always someone worse off than you. If you are on hospital bed rest, celebrate that you are still pregnant for this holiday and your baby has more time to grow stronger. If your baby is in the NICU, be thankful that your beautiful blessing is receiving excellent care and was not born one day earlier.
Every HRH mom and baby is in my thoughts and prayers this Christmas, and I can’t wait to celebrate with you next year when everyone is home and healthy, which is the best gift ever. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
hospital bedrest for preeclampsia, where she received a HRH Bed Rest Basket. After four weeks in the hospital, a spike in blood pressure caused her to have Henry and Nora six weeks early. The babies spent several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit, where they each received a HRH NICU Napsack. Once their entire family was healthy and home, Bailey began volunteering at HRH, delivering bags to patients and helping with various fundraising initiatives.
working, creative, intelligent,
I was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia while pregnant with my twins. During the last two weeks of my pregnancy, I nervously watched my blood pressure increase twofold, despite being on medication for preterm labor that coincidentally was also blood pressure medication. I gained 13 pounds of water weight in as many days. At my regularly scheduled perinatal appointment, a growth ultrasound showed that my daughter had not grown in two weeks, a result of high blood pressure. The doctor took my blood pressure, which measured 160/98 (my normal blood pressure is 100/60). He looked at me and said, “Whoa! What do you think would happen if we took you off the massive amounts of blood pressure medication you are currently taking?” My eyes welled up as I looked at him with relief that a doctor agreed with what I knew had been happening for two weeks. I had preeclampsia and the babies needed to come immediately.
couldn’t decide between High Risk Hope and The Humane Society of Tampa Bay. Both are worthy causes but it’s ‘really hard’ to pick between babies and animals. I feel her pain. There is a good chance she will pick the puppies, which is OK with me (at least publicly).
The Giving Tree correlates to a fantastic prize. Toys, $10- $50 Columbia gift cards, Kendra Scott Jewelry, a Pottery Barn Kids rocking horse and gift certificates from various Hyde Park Village stores. Claire and Hill have seen me loading these prizes for weeks. If someone donates $25 to HRH on Give Day Tampa Bay, they can pick a leaf off of the HRH Giving Tree by the fountain in Hyde Park. The idea, just like in the book The Giving Tree, is to give away all of our leaves throughout the day, and end up with only a stump. Every grown-up donor will receive a shopping pass full of discounts to Hyde Park Village stores and restaurants. We are going to roll out the purple carpet for every one of our HRH donors on Give Day, no matter how much they give.
your tomorrows will look a lot like yesterday. Make the choice to do something, knowing that the first step will be the hardest but also the most rewarding. The most difficult thing I have ever done in regards to HRH is having that first conversation with my husband in 2011 telling him the idea. Before I made the jump I wondered, what if he thinks I can’t do it? What if he won’t support me? He not only supported me, he was all in. The person you confide in with your future plans will have the same reaction. You just need to take the first step and tell them.
HRH’s motto is the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf quote, ‘If your dreams do not scare you they are not big enough.’ If I wake up in the middle of the night at least once a week because of something big we have in the works for HRH, I know we are on the right path. That feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get before something big (a public speech, a promotion, a wedding or a major life change) is the same feeling for every person. It is how you label it that will separate you from being a success or failure. I label that feeling as excitement about an opportunity rather than nervousness and anxiety about a potential failure.
When our pediatrician told us the MRI scheduler would contact us ‘soon’ to schedule the test, I imagined soon really meant we would be waiting a while to actually have the MRI. I know myself well enough to recognize my shelf life of not knowing if my child has a potentially serious condition is around 48 hours. After that I cannot promise I will not completely lose it. Luckily Bennett was able to speed up the process by reaching out to a friend who arranged for Claire to fill a cancelled appointment the next day. We rarely do this but desperate parents call for desperate measures.
mind go to the dark place of thinking it is caused by a serious illness. I took my own advice this week that I have said to friends countless times: you will be the first to know when something is seriously wrong. Stressing and obsessing over the ‘what ifs’ is pointless and could have a negative impact on your own health. Visualizing that your child will be fine won’t change the outcome but it will bridge the gap between today and the day of the test results.
City Council and other local leadership did not create this problem but I hope they will be part of the solution. If each of us compared our personal annual cost of flooding to the current proposed $250 Million overhaul of the stormwater drainage system ($149 increase per taxpayer per year), are we all better off financially paying the increased taxes? This week alone we spent $250 on a water pump, to remove water from puddles creeping close to the house.
You’ve seen it downtown, passing the aquarium and through Ybor City, but have you ever actually been on it? After an aquarium visit one day we rode it downtown and then to Ybor City. The kids were excited to point out all the places they recognized and we jumped off in Ybor for ice cream at Joffrey’s.
We happenedto attended the rivalry game: Orlando Predators vs Tampa Bay Storm. We saw the SWAT team propel down from the center of the field, motorcycle cops with their lights on drive around the arena, the lighting bolts went off when the Storm scored, constant action with the players, and go cart races during halftime. The kids are asking to go back to the final home game.
1320 E 9th Ave, 2nd Floor