An Afternoon with Maria and Audrey at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City

I've heard all of you talking about me behind my back. "Where the heck is Maria? Normally she leaves such nice, witty comments on my articles, and we all know she's the best writer on AC, but she hasn't been writing at all lately! It's like she just...disappeared!" Calm down, everyone. I'm okay. Pirates didn't kidnap me, aliens didn't suck my brains out through my nose (they tried, but couldn't find my brains! Ha!), and filthy werewolves didn't rip my arms off.

As if you hadn't already guessed it, I've spent the majority of the last two weeks at Children's Mercy Hospital in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, with my four-year-old daughter, Audrey. Don't freak out! She's doing all right! Audrey's in the middle of treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (she's in remission now), and the chemotherapy obliterated her immune system, so whenever she runs a fever, we have to come to the hospital, where they keep her for several days and run a bunch of tests and give her a bunch of antibiotics. This is our third time here in two weeks, and, yes, we spent Christmas here. We'll hopefully be home for New Year's.

Oh, good. Audrey's lunch has just been delivered. Guess what she ordered? (You'll never guess.) Orange juice, green beans, and a hot dog bun. Just the bun. And, get this, the bun arrived on a covered hot plate! Hahaha! Usually there's a sprig of parsley, too, but they must have forgotten the parsley this time. (Audrey always crinkles her nose and says "Ew!" when she sees the parsley, so it's a good thing they forgot.)

I've been thinking a lot about kids in hospitals, and about the strange meals they must order. "So, let me get this straight," I can imagine the hospital's room-service operator saying, trying not to laugh, "Billy wants chicken nuggets with pizza sauce on the side, a chocolate milkshake, macaroni and cheese without the cheese, and a waffle with ten packets of syrup." How many of the kids' meal orders include green vegetables, I wonder?

Here at Children's Mercy, the kids can order whatever they want off a menu, anytime throughout the day, and the food is delivered to the patient's room about thirty minutes later. It's a pretty sweet set-up. When I was in the hospital (a different hospital) after giving birth, I didn't get to order whatever I wanted! Nobody brought me a fun paint-by-number kit or bracelet craft! I didn't get to ride a tricycle down the hallway (not that I would have wanted to, right after giving birth. Ouch!)! I also didn't have a freakin' Nintendo Wii in my hospital room! And Santa Claus never visited me! (To watch a video of Santa visiting Audrey at Children's Mercy on Christmas Day, go here.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you have to be stuck in a hospital, Children's Mercy isn't such a bad place to be stuck.

Audrey finished her delicious, warm hot dog bun. And painted the doggie paint-by-number picture without paying any attention to the dumb numbers (good for her!). Now she's sleeping. I think I'll join her in dreamland for a bit.

You can follow Audrey's progress on CarePages. And, in case you missed my dad's slideshow, go here to see a few pictures of Audrey opening Christmas gifts at home. Thank you so much for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I hope to be more active on AC in 2010! Happy New Year!

Update, 12/31/09: Audrey got to come home this afternoon! :)