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Child's Play - From the other side of the screen?
Wolfus
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
I was wondering if anyone here had been in a situation where they experienced the influence that Child's Play or video games have in hospital from the receiving end..?
I honestly don't know if you guys hear this stuff very often or not, or if it's just not very interesting to you. So I apologise in advance for thinking that my life is worth talking about at any length in front of other people. I just wanted to say that when you're in hospital, the small things really can mean an awful lot.
At thirteen I was first admitted to Alder Hey Children's Hospital to have a large spinal operation. Child's Play had not been set up - That is not to say there was nothing in place to keep children occupied, that's not the point of my post.
Afterward it involved what seemed like an awful lot of rehabilitation and not being allowed to leave the hospital bed, before learning to walk again. It also goes without saying, an incredible amount of pain as my spine knitted back together, from which there was no real escape.
Every day, 7:30am, the ward woke up. It was the Summer, it was hot and sticky, it was noisy. There was Daytime TV of 4 or so channels if you could find the one remote, or if you were younger a nurse would come around and give you some colouring in sheets or glue and glitter. As it was the spinal injury and broken limb recovery ward, you didn't really have a great deal of freedom to move around and sit together. How I bizarrely envied the kids in wheelchairs..
But in the afternoon! For a few sweet hours, our ward was allocated "the video game trolley". A small portable television, with an N64, two controllers and two games - Mario 64 and Mario Kart. For a few hours those with working thumbs could forget why we were there and play games as though we were at home with friends. Those without free hands would perch eagerly on the beds surrounding the screen.
Pain was ignored, our families got some peace, it was an escape. Kids that lay awake screaming in pain and frustration at night were sat transfixed. One afternoon I remember I was holding the buttons half of one controller whilst a girl (who was in a cast from neck to pinkie finger after a car hit her) grasped the other half and steered our Kart. In completely unnecessary gratitude, she sat up that night when she couldn't sleep from pain and separated a huge bag of skittles into cups of colours that I liked and colours that she liked.
After those few hours, our allotted time was up, and the trolley would be wheeled down to the next ward. The window into our normal lives had closed, and we were back to the often quite grim reality of why we were there. Some days the trolley didn't come. We would sit waiting anxiously as the time came and went, and it'd turn out that someone had had "a little accident" with the console, or that someone had simply forgotten to bring it to the ward.
Eventually I could walk unassisted, and was allowed to go home. I donated two of my N64 controllers to the games trolley. A lot of those days were a blur of pain, drugs and incoherent conversations, but I remembered what gave me happiness. It made a difference for my parents too. I mean it's got to be one of the worst, most draining experiences anyone has to go through as a parent, and to see your child be given a little bit of their childhood back in those circumstances, is a small grace in a bleak episode.
:...:
About six months before I turned eighteen, something began to feel very wrong with me. Eventually it was discovered that the metal running the full length of my spine had picked up a large infection. The infection had enclosed the metal and formed a resistant film.. Antibiotics couldn't enter to fight it, so the only option was surgery to remove the metal and clean the surrounding area.
It was a few weeks before Christmas, and I soon was back on exactly the same ward as I had been those years ago. For the first week because I was quiet, I was tucked away in a side section with a baby who had two broken hips, and a child who hadn't mentally aged past eighteen months but was now eight with at least one broken leg. I was not allowed to bring things like my phone or DS in case they were stolen by a visitor as I couldn't leave the bed myself. There was 24-7 screaming, there were only skeleton staff to talk to, and there were certainly no games. Or TV, as that would disturb the other children. I had a book and my parents for a few hours a day, as they could not take much time off work. I cried when I was alone and at night because I couldn't cope. I couldn't sleep, and I felt trapped in a surreal situation and I couldn't just walk away, even to another room. I desperately wanted to go home and somehow feel human again.
The second week of my stay, I was moved out into the main ward to find (to my confusion) it was completely empty save for me and a few older kids. Finally I could sleep, but most importantly I could see an aquarium! And what was in my peripheral vision..? Over in the corner? A large, strange colourful cylinder on wheels. It was a tamper proof gaming console station. A bit like the demo pods in game stores, but yellow and mobile. The nurse explained that it contained a console and game donated to the hospital. I'd heard of Child's Play by that point, and I wondered whether it had come from there. The year would coincide with Child's Play having begun donating to Alder Hey, but I can't claim with absolute certainty something I wasn't involved with.
Turns out the game was Mario Sunshine. Again I was offered an escape, for a few hours a day I could feel less alone, less frustrated and focus on something so intuitive and special. I've been a fascinated gamer most of my life, and having something I understood in these strange removed surroundings was like a link to the outside and my own life.
When you're in hospital with little to do, you create these tiny inane little goals to pass the time, and mine was that one afternoon I was somehow going to walk all the way to that station. Alright, standing upright hadn't yet been mastered... But I knew that if I could walk over and sit by that machine unaided, I could go home.
I honestly don't know if you guys hear this stuff very often or not, or if it's just not very interesting to you. So I apologise in advance for thinking that my life is worth talking about at any length in front of other people. I just wanted to say that when you're in hospital, the small things really can mean an awful lot.
At thirteen I was first admitted to Alder Hey Children's Hospital to have a large spinal operation. Child's Play had not been set up - That is not to say there was nothing in place to keep children occupied, that's not the point of my post.
Afterward it involved what seemed like an awful lot of rehabilitation and not being allowed to leave the hospital bed, before learning to walk again. It also goes without saying, an incredible amount of pain as my spine knitted back together, from which there was no real escape.
Every day, 7:30am, the ward woke up. It was the Summer, it was hot and sticky, it was noisy. There was Daytime TV of 4 or so channels if you could find the one remote, or if you were younger a nurse would come around and give you some colouring in sheets or glue and glitter. As it was the spinal injury and broken limb recovery ward, you didn't really have a great deal of freedom to move around and sit together. How I bizarrely envied the kids in wheelchairs..
But in the afternoon! For a few sweet hours, our ward was allocated "the video game trolley". A small portable television, with an N64, two controllers and two games - Mario 64 and Mario Kart. For a few hours those with working thumbs could forget why we were there and play games as though we were at home with friends. Those without free hands would perch eagerly on the beds surrounding the screen.
Pain was ignored, our families got some peace, it was an escape. Kids that lay awake screaming in pain and frustration at night were sat transfixed. One afternoon I remember I was holding the buttons half of one controller whilst a girl (who was in a cast from neck to pinkie finger after a car hit her) grasped the other half and steered our Kart. In completely unnecessary gratitude, she sat up that night when she couldn't sleep from pain and separated a huge bag of skittles into cups of colours that I liked and colours that she liked.
After those few hours, our allotted time was up, and the trolley would be wheeled down to the next ward. The window into our normal lives had closed, and we were back to the often quite grim reality of why we were there. Some days the trolley didn't come. We would sit waiting anxiously as the time came and went, and it'd turn out that someone had had "a little accident" with the console, or that someone had simply forgotten to bring it to the ward.
Eventually I could walk unassisted, and was allowed to go home. I donated two of my N64 controllers to the games trolley. A lot of those days were a blur of pain, drugs and incoherent conversations, but I remembered what gave me happiness. It made a difference for my parents too. I mean it's got to be one of the worst, most draining experiences anyone has to go through as a parent, and to see your child be given a little bit of their childhood back in those circumstances, is a small grace in a bleak episode.
:...:
About six months before I turned eighteen, something began to feel very wrong with me. Eventually it was discovered that the metal running the full length of my spine had picked up a large infection. The infection had enclosed the metal and formed a resistant film.. Antibiotics couldn't enter to fight it, so the only option was surgery to remove the metal and clean the surrounding area.
It was a few weeks before Christmas, and I soon was back on exactly the same ward as I had been those years ago. For the first week because I was quiet, I was tucked away in a side section with a baby who had two broken hips, and a child who hadn't mentally aged past eighteen months but was now eight with at least one broken leg. I was not allowed to bring things like my phone or DS in case they were stolen by a visitor as I couldn't leave the bed myself. There was 24-7 screaming, there were only skeleton staff to talk to, and there were certainly no games. Or TV, as that would disturb the other children. I had a book and my parents for a few hours a day, as they could not take much time off work. I cried when I was alone and at night because I couldn't cope. I couldn't sleep, and I felt trapped in a surreal situation and I couldn't just walk away, even to another room. I desperately wanted to go home and somehow feel human again.
The second week of my stay, I was moved out into the main ward to find (to my confusion) it was completely empty save for me and a few older kids. Finally I could sleep, but most importantly I could see an aquarium! And what was in my peripheral vision..? Over in the corner? A large, strange colourful cylinder on wheels. It was a tamper proof gaming console station. A bit like the demo pods in game stores, but yellow and mobile. The nurse explained that it contained a console and game donated to the hospital. I'd heard of Child's Play by that point, and I wondered whether it had come from there. The year would coincide with Child's Play having begun donating to Alder Hey, but I can't claim with absolute certainty something I wasn't involved with.
Turns out the game was Mario Sunshine. Again I was offered an escape, for a few hours a day I could feel less alone, less frustrated and focus on something so intuitive and special. I've been a fascinated gamer most of my life, and having something I understood in these strange removed surroundings was like a link to the outside and my own life.
When you're in hospital with little to do, you create these tiny inane little goals to pass the time, and mine was that one afternoon I was somehow going to walk all the way to that station. Alright, standing upright hadn't yet been mastered... But I knew that if I could walk over and sit by that machine unaided, I could go home.
And I like the things I do, so hooray for me...
Wolfus on
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Posts
I've spent a few days in hospital, but never long enough or in such horrific pain/conditions that I claim to understand what these kids go through, but it's definitely given me empathy for the situation that faces so many for so long every year.
And it's part of why I actively look forward to the start of Child's Play season. Stories like yours are a big part of why I feel it's such an important charity, and it floors me each time the season's tally comes in. Even when things are looking gloomy world wide, the generosity shown year after year is really quite impressive.