Remember last month when we did the August Monthly Service Project for Primary Children’s Medical Center. Well it’s been over a month, and I finally found time to make this months project. Next month I will put it up at the beginning of the month, even if I haven’t finished it so that you can have all month to work on it. I was excited to do the project this PCMC Service project. Capes for the Boys and Tutu’s for the Girls!! They were Remember last month when we did the August Monthly Service Project for Primary Children’s Medical Center. Well it’s been over a month, and I finally found time to make this months project. Next month I will put it up at the beginning of the month, even if I haven’t finished it so that you can have all month to work on it. I was excited to do the project this month. Capes for the Boys and Tutu’s for the Girls!! They were very easy! Go here for the instructions and if you don’t have a facebook account…
Here is the instructions for the Capes…
And here are the Instructions for the Tutu…
Cut a 21″ piece of elastic cord, circle it around on itself and sew it together forming a circle as indicated. Using whatever colors you desire, cut 30″x4″ strands of mesh material. Each tutu needs 35 strands, but fewer can be used as materials are available. Do a simple single knot to attach each strand around the elastic band.
Like last month I want to share another story of a family member that has been blessed by PCMC. This story is another one very close to me. Grace is one of my favorite little nieces ever, and my amazing sister and brother-in-law’s daughter. I was living far away when this happened and was not able to be around during this time. As I read my sister’s story I cried reading about what she went though, the emotions she felt, but I was also grateful for how blessed they were to have such a great hospital right near their home.
Dear Grace~
Your dad and I were so shocked that you were a girl! I immediately started to cry. I had wanted another girl so bad and here you were! “Well, she is fine, but she has a little sack at the bottom of her spine.” My heart sank. Out of my nursing head came the words , “Like Spina Bifida?” To this day I still think it’s so crazy that I remembered about spina bifida at a time like that. I had studied Spine Bifida very briefly in Nursing School, but not enough to remember it at a time like that. (God is good!). They followed up by saying that they really couldn’t say what it was and that they needed to take her back to the NICU to be checked by at neonatologist. My doctor also said that it didn’t look too severe and that we would have to wait and see. They wrapped you up and brought you to me and I got to hold and kiss you for only about a minute. I cried and told you that I loved you. Daddy looked so scared as he followed you out the door with the NICU team.
After everyone was gone, except for my mom I fell apart. My mom came and stood right next to the bed and held my hand and said something I will never forget. She leaned right down and in my ear she said, “She came to this earth just like she was supposed to.” I then felt the spirit so strong and knew that everything would be okay and that your Heavenly Father had a plan on this earth just for you. I am forever grateful that I had my mom there at that time. I needed someone to cry with me and to support me at that time and she was there.
A little while later daddy came back into the room with tears in his eyes. He said in a soft voice that it was spina bifida and that you would need to go to Primary Children’s Hospital as soon as possible. Dad had known a girl with spina bifida while growing up and she was a paraplegic and in a wheel chair her entire life. He was one scared daddy and I was in a total daze.
By the time you were 3 hours old you were at Primary Children’s Hospital.
Finally, your surgery was over and Dr. Walker came to talk with us. He said your surgery was a success. He told us he found some dead nerve endings in the little sack and that he thought it was meningicil spina bifida, which isn’t as bad as the myelomeningicil kind. (We recently found out that it is myelomeningicil because of your bowel and bladder problems.)
Two days later Grandma brought the kids up to see you. They were so excited to see you. The child-life specialist came in to talk with them about spina bifida. She gave each of them a doll that had a hospital gown just like yours, an IV just like yours, and EKG leads just like yours. They also were given gloves, a dr.’s mask, and some other fun stuff to help them feel a little closer to you. After they spent just a little time with you, we took them to a room that was made just for kids who have family members in PCMC. It had all kinds of fun stuff, including a tv and video games, toys, coloring stuff, and crafts. It was so nice to be able to go somewhere inside with the other kids and to just sit on the floor and play with them. They were going through something hard as well and they all didn’t’ quite understand what was going on. To be able to spend some good quality time with them in the PCMC Forever Young playroom was such a blessing. The kids had a lot of fun.
Finally, on Saturday the 23rd they told us we could take you home. We could have gone home the day before but you wouldn’t eat. We had to make sure you were eating alright before we could go home. We bundled you up in your new little outfit, put you in the car seat, and left our little room in the Pediatric ICU. What a crazy few days we had there at PCMC. We had wonderful care and always felt like the doctors, nurses, residents and anyone else we came in contact with at PCMC cared and wanted us to be comfortable and supported. It is such a blessing to live so close to such a wonderful hospital with such an experienced staff of doctors and nurses. We have been blessed. We love you so much and are so happy you are a part of our family. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
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Thanks Jen for sharing that with us. I will attest to that spunky little red head. She’s a doll. You wouldn’t know anything was wrong with her. She is a little walking miracle and I am so grateful for her and her parents example in my life, and also for Primary Children’s Medical Center for taking such good care of her all these years and the years to come as she will have another surgery again.
I made one of each project in under an hour. My kids helped and again we had a great time talking about the children that these gifts will go to. So if you can, at least make one and take it to the front desk at PCMC or mail it to
