A is for A.I. DuPont Hospital

The Nemours Carillion

Alfred I. duPont Hospital is our home away from home.  (Though sometimes I'd argue that the hospital is our home and the place where my mail is delivered is our "home away.")  We have spent countless days and nights there, both inpatient (sending love to our friends on 3F!) and in the outpatient clinics.  The only time I can guarantee that we won't be there for an entire week is if we are going on vacation.

For the last year, the hospital has been growing.  For a long time, there wasn't a whole lot to see, as the construction was really below the ground.  Now that the framework of the new building has been going up, it seems like if we don't have to go for a few days, there is another floor!  We can only see a tiny bit of the new hospital from the parking lot, so we try to catch the building cam from time to time so we can see the whole expansion.

Our family has had patients at duPont since Luke was a year old.  We've been very blessed with great doctors - and I think we've visited darn near every department.  I'm sure the ones we haven't experienced are *awesome*, but I'd just as soon keep it that way!  One of the best things about our docs is yes, they ARE great, but they ALSO know their limits and know when to call in help.  When Luke was sent for a sleep study and the pulmonologist didn't know how to interpret the EEG, he parked himself outside the neurologist's office until she read it with him; that same neurologist is now sending us to a specialist at NIH because we have exhausted what she knows about a particular area of the kids' diagnoses. 

This is us over the years.  Like I said, it's our home away from home!

 This is Jude, at 13 mos.  We went for a "routine" annual genetics appointment (doesn't every family have them?) and the doctor admitted him because he was the size of an average 4 month old.  We spent two weeks inpatient, but they got him sorted out (and growing!) and he hasn't looked back!

 4 month old Damien, inpatient. 

 Luke getting casted for orthotics

Checking out projections of the new wing

Drawing in the Outpatient Therapy unit waiting room.  

Jude is drawing the "hoppa-copter" flying to the hospital.

 

Checking out the construction progress.

 

Jude grew!!

Waiting for the doctor.

Snack in the cafeteria.

Passing the time between appointments at the hospital playground.

See this?  This is Celia, feeding tube and all (that's the backpack). 

 It's thanks to the docs there that she can do this.  

Just because we are spending the day at the hospital doesn't mean Jude gets to play hooky!  Here Jude is, "Home away from home"-schooling! 

Every time we arrive or leave,  Jude has to walk along the planters like a balance beam.  

We've had a few times where they really could use a traffic light and road markings to help avoid kid crashes!

My brave Matthew. I have literally had to peel him off the wall and carry him into the lab in the past.   He will tell you he's a giant chicken about having blood drawn, and cries "Bok bok bok!" the entire time.   The techs have a hard time drawing because they're laughing so hard, but they still manage to always draw everything on one stick.  This time was a whopping nine vials...it sounded like an entire flock of chickens was in the lab, because all the techs joined in.   

Sometimes, we have long days.  By the time we go home, we are all exhausted.  I always sigh when we leave in the winter -- with late afternoon appointments, it's often dark by the time we are heading out to the car.  But I always stop to admire the sunset  from the parking lot.  I've seen so many from a hospital room that I am always grateful to be looking at them "from the outside." 

 

The Blogging through the Alphabet series continues, starting over with A.





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