A note from our Honored Team Mate...

Things To Do In The Hospital When You're 2
by Ryan Peterson

1. Sleep well at night and take good naps.

2. Flirt with the nurses.

3. Learn how to examine yourself so you blend in with the doctors.

4. Peruse equipment carts for fun toys. Continually try to steal the blood transfusion kits.

5. Learn how to disable your IV pumps, so they have to be sent back to be reprogrammed.

6. Take your own blood pressure and temperature.

7. Lick the floor when you have no immune system (makes mom scream out loud).

8. Chase big brother around, be chased by big brother, ride cars and bikes with big brother.

9. Make friends with the cute siblings of other patients. Make friends with other cute patients.

10. Cheer up other parents when they're sad or just have been here too long.

11. Help the cleaning lady wash down your room.

12. Try to poke things into your central line when no one is looking.

13. Hoard pen lights, empty saline syringes and paper products from the night nurses.

14. Obsessively measure your own height using the measuring stick on the wall; cry and kick when someone else tries to do it for you.

15. Ignore patient privacy rules and try to thumb through other patients' charts whenever possible.

16. Whenever you see two or more nurses talking, regardless of what they're talking about, run up and join the conversation.

17. Test mom or dad's reflexes: burp loudly, pretending your tummy is upset. Pretend you might barf. See how fast mom or dad can reach for the barf pan. Sit back happily after they break the world speed record trying to get the pan near you, but don't ever actually throw up.

18. Dance on the bed.

19. Pull down people's shirts and look in. If you're only 2, you can be forgiven. After that, who knows.

20. Take in all the love every day, and focus on getting better!!!

These are all things Ryan does practically on a daily basis. Fortunately, he spends most of his time on #20. :)