This section is meant to provide useful tips for parents bringing their kids to the hospital for surgery from home. Kids that will be staying in the PICU not the NICU.
This is a work in progress but I have been wanting to add this for a long time so at the very least will get it started.
1. Pack heavy - You and your child will be staying at the hospital for at least 5 days so pack clothes, bathing needs, favorite toys when your child starts feeling better. Enough clothes for one of you to stay because unlike the NICU, where you could leave, one parent has to be with the child at all times this includes spending the night.
2. Leave Early - If traffic is anything like the tri-state area here around NYC by you, then I suggest you leave a lot earlier than you would first think, unless of course you are first case and you have to leave so early in the morning that traffic doesn't matter.
3. Getting Bumped - Your child's surgery might get bumped. Emergencies happen and sometimes the operating room is given priority to another patient and your child's surgery is not an emergency so you will get moved to another date. It happened twice to us before with our daughter and once with our son. It happens so prepare yourself now.
This is a work in progress but I have been wanting to add this for a long time so at the very least will get it started.
1. Pack heavy - You and your child will be staying at the hospital for at least 5 days so pack clothes, bathing needs, favorite toys when your child starts feeling better. Enough clothes for one of you to stay because unlike the NICU, where you could leave, one parent has to be with the child at all times this includes spending the night.
2. Leave Early - If traffic is anything like the tri-state area here around NYC by you, then I suggest you leave a lot earlier than you would first think, unless of course you are first case and you have to leave so early in the morning that traffic doesn't matter.
3. Getting Bumped - Your child's surgery might get bumped. Emergencies happen and sometimes the operating room is given priority to another patient and your child's surgery is not an emergency so you will get moved to another date. It happened twice to us before with our daughter and once with our son. It happens so prepare yourself now.