The fireworks and flags are long gone, but the holiday’s been on my mind ever since.
Meet Chloe Downey
The pre-occupation began with a post at Chloe Downy’s CaringBridge page. She’s a teenager who recently completed successful treatment for High Risk Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL). Though she’s pretty much done with doctors and hospitals, her mom often posts thoughtful items about other families they know.
Hospitals and Minor Holidays Like the 4th of July
Her entry about a family in the hospital over the 4th of July weekend. After describing how the girl was fighting cancer, she went on to say this:
“His side comment has haunted me: ‘July 4th’s were very tough. We watched a lot of fireworks from a hospital room.‘
Hospital staff does very well with the traditional holidays for children, but they have yet to approve indoor fireworks to ohh and awe over.
There is nothing like the world outside having a party, being invited, but having to be someplace where you don’t want to be at all that is very difficult on a family’s soul.”
How Can We Help?
Ouch. Those words hurt. They left me wondering how to raise awareness among friends of families of sick kids. How can they help until hospitals pick up the slack and have indoor fireworks for families watching the celebration from their hospital rooms. Here’s what I came up with:
- Take a 4th of July picnic to the hospital and eat with the family.
- Have a parade in the hallway.
- Have an indoor beach party, complete with kiddie pools full of sand.
Not very impressive, is it? And with another minor holiday, Labor Day, on the horizon a few more ideas would be nice. If you have ideas or stories about how you celebrated minor holidays in the hospital, would you please leave a comment? Maybe we can come up with a bigger list to FB and tweet about the week before Labor Day.
Get to Know Chloe
If you’d like to know more about Chloe, click on this link to visit her CaringBridge site. To learn more about the family who watched fireworks from the hospital, you’ll find a link to their page at Chloe’s July 3 journal entry.
I look forward to reading about your great holiday celebration ideas!
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