Being a Toyologist completely rocks......but I'm sure you'd all kind of guessed this anyway! I've mentioned in previous posts that I was going to try and donate some of the toys to the local hospital. Well thanks to the generosity of Toys R Us, I was able to give them a box worth around £150!!
As I live not too far from Leicester I decided that I would donate them to the Leicester Royal Infirmary. They have nine play centres at the hospital spread over two hospitals, several wards and waiting rooms. I'd had a few e-mails back and forth with the Play Co-ordinator about dropping off the toys and made my merry way to the hospital on Tuesday.
Chick has only been to the hospital once to have grommits in her ears, we were there for the day, it all went very smoothly and apart from having the same operation myself and giving birth, I've pretty much been lucky enough to avoid the hospital.
Before I went to drop the toys off, all I really thought about was what a great thing I was doing and hoping that the toys would make a bit of a difference. Very narcissistic of me I know and something that I'm going to have to work on. What I hadn't thought about was any of the 1,000 or so people that might be laying in a hospital bed and how ill some of them might be.
On the main site there are four main children's wards ranging from recuperation to plastics to long term illnesses to breathing difficulties. On each ward there is a dedicated play room that is run by a play worker. They organise all the activities which are different morning and afternoon. They make sure that the boards are up to date and decorated with drawings and pictures from the children. On some wards their job is to try and explain through play what their treatment many involve. On others it may be as simple as playing a game with the patients.
Some of the children can stay for up to two years. Just take a minute to imagine that? Not only your child being ill but being so ill that they are in hospital for two years! How do you even go about dealing with that? How do you help them? How you deal with your child not making it home from the hospital?
I spent the whole day going around in circles and really not concentrating on my work just thinking about the morning at the hospital. Now here I am, five days later and I still wish there was something that I could do to help but I just don't know what. I'm not a healer, I can't donate millions to research or to pay for nurses so what can I do? I'm not sure what I can do but you can do something for me.......when you've finished reading this, go hug your kids or watch them sleep for a minute and be grateful that they are well and healthy!
*Lots of lovely reviews to follow when the Play Workers have had time to collate their thoughts and come back to me :-)
