Goodbye Fears
Welcome to Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health
Welcome to Oklahoma Children’s Hospital OU Health – A place created for kids just like you. This book will help you discover what your visit might be like.
Let’s get started.
Places to Explore
You are probably wondering what the hospital looks like. This isn’t like any other hospital you’ve seen, and there are some really fun places here. Let’s go exploring together
The Atrium is the hospital’s front door. When you get here, you’ll be greeted by colorful butterflies hanging from the really high glass ceiling and two fun characters jumping rope. The atrium is a great place for you to relax with your family and enjoy some time away from your room.
The Zone is a huge play area that is bigger than a basketball court. It is on the sixth floor and is a great place to play with your brothers, sisters, parents or other kids visiting the hospital. Please check with your Child Life Specialist for the daily hours of The Zone. You will find lots of crafts, games, video games, air hockey table, a large play space and much more. The therapy dogs love to visit this space too.
The Children’s Village is an open-air play area available year-round, with sixth floor entry access from the Atrium or just outside the Zone. The Children’s Village is a safe place for a change of scenery, freedom of movement and fresh air open from dusk till dawn.
The Presti Play Area & Clubhouse is an indoor/outdoor play area located in the east lobby on the first floor of the hospital. There are family-friendly seating areas and interactive play areas.
Let’s Pack the Wagon
Your Very Own Room
Even though nothing is quite like home, your room here is brightly colored and you can bring your favorite things from home and can decorate it. • PJs • Favorite pillows & blankets • Books, movies and toys • Electronics (phone, laptop, tablet) • Music • Snacks • Homework Plus, you don’t have to share your room with anyone else (unless you want your parents to stay with you). In your room, you will have your own bed, a chair or pull out couch for your family to stay the night. You also have your own bathroom and TV.
People to Meet There are a lot of people who work at the hospital who are really, really nice. Let’s meet a few. • Doctors help figure out how to make your body feel better. They wear white coats and ask you a lot of questions about how you are feeling. • Nurses take care of you while you are at the hospital. They check on you, ask you questions and bring you medicine when you need it. • Child Life Specialists help you learn about and understand being in the hospital. They also make the hospital a little bit easier and more fun. • Transporters move you from room to room in a wagon, wheelchair or maybe even a bed on wheels. • Physical Therapists help you with moving around so your muscles get stronger. They help you do the things you did before you came to the hospital, like moving, stretching and exercising. • Occupational Therapists help you with doing the every day tasks like getting dressed and brushing your teeth. • Evironmental Services- this team will keep your room clean every day! You might meet a few other nice people during your stay, like therapy dogs, housekeepers, chaplains and even volunteers. Be sure to say “Hi” to them.
The Stuff You’ll See
During your visit you might notice some medical things in your room. These things may make some noises and look a little different, but don’t worry, it’s all there to help you feel better. Let’s take a look. • Stethoscopes help doctors and nurses hear your heartbeat and breathing. • The Blood Pressure Cuff wraps around your arm and gives it a big hug to measure your blood pressure. • The Pulse Ox hugs your finger or is a sticky piece of cloth that wraps around your finger. It counts the deep breaths you take and has a red light on it. • Masks, Hats, & Scrubs are items that doctors and nurses wear masks, hats and blue clothes called scrubs to be sure everything stays clean. • An IV is a medicine straw that is placed into a vein in your hand, or arm to get medicine into your body really fast.
The Stuff You’ll See • Leads are Stickers put on your chest and stomach. Like a stethoscope, leads measure how many times your heart beats and measure your breathing, too. • The X-Ray Machine takes pictures of your bones. • The CT Scanner takes special pictures of the inside of your body while you lay very still.. You will go for a ride on a table that looks like a donut. • The MRI Machine looks like a big tunnel and takes detailed pictures of the inside of your body. MRIs can take a while, so you might get some sleepy medicine before so you can rest. • The Nuclear Medicine Machine is a special camera that looks at your bones or organs. The camera is underneath you, and it doesn’t make any noise. • The Flouroscopy Camera is like an X-ray but it takes an X-ray movie so it can see how things move inside your body. The camera gets really close but doesn’t touch you.
Words You’ll Hear At the hospital, it can sound like people are speaking code. A lot of words you hear sound like other things but really mean something else! Don’t worry though, I’ll teach you all about these words. • NPO stands for “No food by mouth.” This means you are not supposed to eat or drink anything so your tummy can rest and your body can get ready for tests or surgery. • Shot- A shot is one-way doctors give you medicine in the hospital. It is like a small poke. • Poke- Some kids say a poke feels like a pinch. When you are in the hospital, a poke is one way your doctors and nurses might give you medicine. • 4x4 is special kind of bandage made of cloth. It is in the shape of a square. • Stretcher is a bed with wheels. You lay on a stretcher while you are in the hospital. • “Put you on another floor” means that you are going to another level in the hospital. The hospital has 10 levels or floors that you can be on or moved to. • Dressing Change means that you will get new special bandages. Someone takes off the old bandages, cleans you up and gives you new ones. • ICU means the Intensive Care Unit. The ICU is a floor in the hospital with rooms where doctors watch you and your body very closely.
Words You’ll Hear • “Draw blood” and “Lab test” mean that someone will take a tiny amount of your blood and look at it closely so the doctor can figure out why you are feeling sick. • Doc is just the short name for a doctor. • Resident is another name for a doctor. • “Put to sleep” are words used when talking about the sleepy medicine. When you get the sleepy medicine, you will stay asleep for the whole time the doctors are working and wake up when they are done. • Vitals are when nurses check your vitals, this means they listen to your heartbeat and breathing, check your pulse, check your temperature, and check your weight and height. • Stool Collection is a small sample of your poop is a stool collection. Sometimes doctors run tests on it to find out why your body is feeling sick.
More Places to Explore if You Are Having Surgery
If you are visiting the hospital for surgery, you might see a bunch of other medical rooms with a lot of gadgets and machines you just learned about. Exam Room- On the day of surgery, you will visit an exam room. It is also called the Pre-op Room. This is a place where a nurse will take your vitals. This means that they will weight you, measure how tall you are, take your temperature and pulse. Then doctors might come in to talk to you and your parents about your visit. You. Can ask them questions, and they will explain everything to you so you know what to expect. Surgery Room- When it is time for your surgery, a nurse will take you back to the surgery room, also called the OR, and your family will stay in the waiting room. There are a lot of lights and machines in the OR. The lights are like big flashlights. Some kids say they look like spaceships or satellites.
More Places to Explore if You Are Having Surgery Also, you will see people in masks, hats and blue pajamas called scrubs. They wear these to make sure everything stays really clean. A special doctor called an anesthesiologist will give you a mask to hold over your nose and mouth. The mask has a medicine in it that will help you fall fast asleep so the doctors can help you feel better. Recovery Room- After your surgery, you will wake up in the Recovery Room. You will probably still feel sleepy from the medicine. There will be nurses there to check on you, and one of your parents can be in the recovery room too. If you are leaving the hospital that day, you might go to a second recovery room. You will be able to have something to drink and watch TV until the doctors tell you it is time to go home. If you are spending the night at the hospital, after the recovery room you will go to a different unit to your hospital room.
See You Soon
Thanks for stopping by. We hope you learned that the hospital is full of neat places, and really nice people. Have fun exploring the actual hospital.