Maddie's Hospital Life

The hospital that Maddie is in is undergoing a huge renovation. New buildings are being built, old buildings are being remodeled, etc. If you don't know where you're going you will definitely get lost. For example, the new building has finally been attached to the old one, but if you're on the fifth floor of the old building, it's the sixth floor of the new building. Whole departments are relocated when their wing is being remodeled. When you're walking on the floor where Maddie's room is, you wouldn't know that it's the pediatric floor as the hallways are pretty generic. The same is true of her room. There is only one indicator that the room is for a pediatric patient (besides, of course, the bed): The mural on the ceiling.

Those are ceiling tiles, in case you can't tell from the picture. Maddie can just lay there and look at the birdies and hot air balloons flying overhead. It's nice, but that's all there is to the room. I need to get some balloons and stuffed animals in there and jazz up room 5444A.

One of the things that cracks me up is the "Baby Lojack" on Maddie's ankle. It's there to prevent her being kidnapped. Although, I think it's on there to prevent fed-up parents from simply taking their baby home. It's on there really loose, she kicks it off all the time. I am about ready to staple it on there so no one steals her!


There is no beginning or end to Maddie's day. Everything is repeated every three hours. Each cycle starts with a check of her temperature.

You want to stick that WHERE?!

After her vitals are taken, it's breathing treatment time. She gets two treatments every three hours (some of them can be mixed into the same nebulizer, some can't) and each treatment can last as long as 15 minutes. Sometimes she likes the treatments, sometimes she doesn't.

It's not that I don't like them, I just get bored!

We can't feed her for a full hour before a treatment because they make her cough - sometimes hard enough to vomit. If she vomits during a treatment, she could aspirate, and no one wants that. Once the treatments are done, she is usually starving. So it's feeding time! As I have previously mentioned, Maddie is on a special formula because she vomits frequently. At home, we buy the regular powdered version of it, but in the hospital it comes already made...and it's brown instead of white and smells DISGUSTING. She loves it, though. I don't know why. She gobbles it down faster than she ever ate my breast milk...she already doesn't like my cooking.


Usually when she's done eating, a nurse comes in to see how much she ate, if she has dirty diapers, etc. Twice a day, a Resident will come in. If it's one of the male residents, watch out. Maddie turns on the charm. It is so hilarious to see her look up at the male doctors through her eyelashes. She doesn't do it to her female pediatrician or the female nurses, just the male doctors! She's FOUR MONTHS OLD! How does she know how to flirt?

Well hello there, Doctor Handsome.

All that poking and prodding and eating and flirting can really tire a girl out. She grabs a few minutes of sleep before the whole cycle starts again.

My favorite bed is Daddy's arms