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You’re going to be spending a lot of time in this tiny room
(and there will be times that it seems to grow even-smaller), so
it’s imperative that you fix it up. It’s going to work miracles for
your child’s outlook (and let’s face it, wouldn’t you rather look
at droopy crepe streamers than eggshell white walls?). If you need more practical encouragement—you are, after all, renting it! While the lease agreement won’t be what you’re accustomed to, some of the rules of occupancy are. There are a few things you’ll need to consider before you pull out the hammer and nails, but once you square away the rules, decorating your hospital room can become the rallying point when you’re in need of a boost at the prospect of returning to the hospital for another extended stay. Besides something fun to look forward to, it can even serve as an activity during the off-weeks at home. Time spent in planning (let your child to pick the next theme or colors) and perhaps even shopping for the materials can add to the excitement. |
 Hunt down the people in charge of your ward and get to know them. Share your plans with them and you may just find a new source of help!
There is an indirect benefit to decorating your hospital room. When the staff sees the efforts you go to to make your stay better, they’ll remember it and perhaps even applaud your efforts.
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Our son was a very prolific artist during the first month. All his creations hung on the walls. He was especially fond of paints. He let everyone who came in pick a picture from his "gallery." We also brought his own bedding and pillows. One of his favorite things was the collage we made with all his favorite family pictures. It goes with us all the time. With each stay, I'd think of a theme for a door sign, for example, our last admission was "Jason's Paradise" and I drew a beach scene with palm trees. The staff at my daughters hospital were incredible, they let her rearange the furniture. She brought in her own very colorful bedding, decorated the windows (Crayola® makes washable markers for glass). She even decorated the other kids' rooms. She always decorated her IV pole and pump, she even named him "Bob" (after her doc) and it wore a purple wig that she had been given. She has a gift for brightening up a place !!! She couldn't have flowers when she was neutropenic, so we brought her a dozen of neutropenic ( fake ) yellow roses ! :) When my daughter was in one day hospital for chemo, the staff told us two of her friends who were in-patients upstairs. When we went up to visit, we entered a Hawaiian Luau! Complete with leas, hula skirts, virgin piña coladas and stawberry daquaris. what a blast!! IV poles were decorated with grass skirts and parrots. The kids were thrilled and so were parents. We'll never forget the fun. We had a great picture of Alex with a tiny fish and a giant smile! It was on his door and served as a great icebreaker for everyone who came in. Alex had a gazillion (his word) cards that we had up everywhere in the room. If I took one down or moved it, HE KNEW. It was very important to him to have a lot of "home" things in his room. My daughter, Moriah, fell in love with clowns. Her friends, made clowns and decorated her room with them. She also had colorful chains and balloons. Since the very first hospital stay, my son, Abraham, has always brought lots of coloring pages and door signs. He decorates his IV poles with his two favorite monkeys and at Christmas, we hung streamers on the pole to be festive. All the nurses now know him by name—all 36 of them!. All the doctors refer to Abraham's room as the "Party Room." When someone brings him a card Abraham always asks them to find a space for it on the walls (which isn't easy sometimes!). My daughter goes to chemo every day for the first round of chemo, then daily the next two weeks repeating for 4 rounds. I decided to let her know that a lot of people love her—we stapled her cards to the garage door so everyday after chemo, she can see she is indeed loved. And not only by us, but her freinds as well. After the second week, we needed more room and she smiles everytime she sees the cards.
The first thing we do is move the furniture around to give us the largest area of open space. Then we put jumbo stick-ups up of the Teletubbies or Winnie-the-Pooh. We put photos of family and friends on a poster board and had it laminated so we could hang it on the bathroom door or walls. We found cheap posters of Winnie-the-Pooh and also had them laminated. The reason for laminating is so we can reuse them over and over again. A kite lays on top of his crib and so do some misc. pictures.
Make collages and have the nurses and doctors sign positive messages; it helps me remember that people
care. And most importantly, GOD CARES!
My 15-year old teen loves butterflies so we decorated her room with butterfly—everything: a throw rug, pillow, blanket, house slippers, pj, balloons, and even a framed picture. The finishing touch was a road sign at her door saying "Butterfly Crossing."
We make sure we have fun bedding from home and we put signs on the door to let people know how we feel. I saw a teenager with a big sheet of poster board; when her friends came by, they put their visitor sticker on the poster.
My daughter Cecilia decided that dinosaurs were inside her body, on the hunt for leukemia cells (and later, any cells that were thinking about being "weak"). We went with that idea and developed a collection of realistic looking dinos that followed us to every hospital stay, along with dino related decorations. We also dubbed out stays (during consolidation for ALL) "Hospital Parties," and made them as fun and joyous as possible, with friend visits, decorations, favorite bedding-toys-games, and food (delivered by friends). All of this got Cecilia in a great frame of mind for those long three days. One more thought, when you're getting ready to begin hospital stays and you see signs of nervousness, make a list of all the positive and negatives about going in for a stay. If you adopt a "hospital party" mentality, the positives far out way the negatives (pokes, etc.). Here's to POSITIVE THINKING!!!
One other thought - we just bought a Polaroid camera for the last two Hospital Parties so our daughter could take pictures and remember things from her perspective. She gets the instant gratification of seeing them develop right away, and then we use them to decorate the room. We also take pictures of favorite things (sis, the dog) before we leave and tape them up too. We write a caption on the bottom of each one so the doctors and nurses get to know us better too!
When my daughter first got sick, she was too young to be in a regular hospital bed. She was in one of the medium round sized bed with the see-through bubble tops. We took family pictures and taped them to the outside with the picture showing through. When she was in bed, all she had to do was look up all around her and her family was everywhere. We also added pictures of her favorite charactersso she ended up with a collage all around her. She was scared to be in her bed alone and it helped ease the fright of a "hospital bed." Lisa K.
Here's something else for you to consider. The next time someone
asks what they can do to help you--instead of sighing and saying "Nothing,"
ask them to save scraps from around the house that can be used as art
supplies. You're serving a couple needs by doing this: your friends and
family WANT to help out, but they don't know what to do (and now you're
letting them). Also, you're breaking out of that trap
that prevents you from asking for help when you really need it.
Paint the windows!! Use tempera paint found in most playrooms and mix with soap then go at it! All you need is water to clean up--even three weeks later!
Our hospital lets the kids paint the windows (or a volunteer would do it for them) using washable paint. They also used the plastic press and peel type stickers--they're great because they can be reused.
I have found it helpful to have the child's name posted above his or her bed. This way, everyone (volunteers, pharmacists, health care workers) can identify the child by name without having to refer to charts. Also, some of the children I have visited with have had an "autograph animal," usually a small stuffed dog. They have everyone who comes in their room sign it. --Kathleen M. (Health Care Professional)
Our daughter sleeps in a crib, so we bring lots of stickers and photos and tape them to the roof of her "cage."
Bringing favorite posters and stuffed animals into the room not only cheers it up, but helps the child feel a little touch of home.
We hooked Beanie-Babies on the IV poles and around the room to brighten it up which helped our daughter through the chemo
days. One of our friends also made a big Beanie-baby chart for visitors to sign and note which was their favorite Beanie-baby.
We post this on the door each visit. Even the Doctors have signed it.
My daughter was older at time of diagnosis and what we did was ask all of her friends to write her a sign with her name and a message and then we hung them all over the room so Kim could see them.
Jimmy's cousin's, Ashley and Cortney made a paperchain to tape up around baby Jimmy's room. Then they hung from string diffent pictures of them and toy pics from magazines.
We were in the hospital over Valentines Day so I went down to the playroom and found pink,
purple, and red construction paper and markers, tape, and stickers, and took them back up to the room. I set to cutting out hearts of all and curls (made by cutting a continues circle that gets smaller and smaller in a piece of construction paper).
I wrote messages on the hearts (" You're the best", "I love you", "You are wonderful," etc.) and hung the curls from the windows and taped the hearts all over the room. Not only did it make us feel happy, but anyone
who came into the room broke out in a smile too!!
It was free, easy, and the best part is when we left I kept the
message hearts and put them in Kyla's baby book!
We had animal and dinosaur pre-cut from balsa wood puzzles that we had bought from the $1 store. we secured them with school glue. I then set them up on the overbed light and the shelf. The lighting effect was very interesting. The assembly process was time and thought consuming. I also used the mini-blinds as a place for get well card exhibits. That helped to brighten the room and allowed my son to see how many people were thinking of him.
We used old calendars to decorate my son's bone marrow transplant room. He loves trains. I brought his calendars from the last two years in and took them apart. It gave me multiple pictures to "wallpaper" the room with. We also brought a poster he had made about himself for his Kindergarten class. It showed all of his favorite things and activities and gave the nursing and medical staff a good way to get to know what our "healthy" child was like.
I take my 6-year old grandson Mickey Mouse® & Taz sheets, bedspread, and his own night light to the hospital. We then get to work on a door sign, with his name on it and he gets to design it. (He always picks purple so everyone knows what room he is in!). And he just loves it. The frist thing J.R. wants up when we get to the hospital is to get his sign up. The nurse's love it too. Coming up, we will J.R.'s sign with shells we picked up from the ocean last week.
When my daughter is in the hospital she likes to paint the windows and the door. I'm not sure the cleaning people like it too much, but it brightens up the room and makes her happy.
When I was in the hospital, I put picutres of my family and my friends up and had a lot of stuffed animals. I named them and hung them around the room. I even ended up naming my IV pole ("Robey the Robot"). It made things a little more fun for me. I was only four when I was diagnosed so I do not remember that much, but I do remember that when I decorated my room it brought life and happy thoughts into my room.
The worst part of my son's first trip to the hospital was the IV pole. He hated it! So we named it George and decorated it with crepe paper and monkeys hanging from the top. Now we bring special items just to decorate George!
The first thing we did when we went in for an admit was to change the sheets and blankets! We brought sheets and blankets from HOME. This served two purposes...1. my daughter couldn't stand the smell of the hospital bedding, which added to her nausea and 2.with her own sheets and blankets it seemed a little more like her room!
we also put up cards, notes and LOTS of pictures of her friends and family.
All of our family and friends stated time and time again how much they wanted to help our family. So, the best thing I could come up with, was a "Poster Party" for my son, where everyone got together for a day with pictures or ideas or anything to make a poster to hang up in his room.
I found that Wal-Mart makes 8x10 reprints for $2 a copy, I had tons made, and plastered his walls with pictures of everyone, to remind him of how much they all love him.
The posters were so creative, and wonderful, they now hang in his bedroom at home.
Alex developed shingles last January and was in hospital—in isolation—for his 8th birthday. I put one of those GIANT birthday cards on his door with a sign asking everyone who went by to sign it. Many people popped their heads in the door to wish him Happy Birthday. When we went home, he had tons of signatures on it and some great birthday memories, instead of the sadness he first felt being hospitalised on that special day.
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