Old home week at Childrens Memorial Hospital

Most of you reading this will remember the difficult summer we had in 2006 when we almost lost Creighton. He was in the hospital for a total of four and half months, including two months in the Intensive Care Unit at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where he arrived by Life Flight Helicopter from Wisconsin on June 19, 2006.

On Friday, Creighton had similar symptoms and, after eight hours in the emergency room in Wisconsin, he was driven, this time, by ambulance to Children's Memorial Hospital's Intensive Care Unit. By the time he arrived, the nurses who remembered Creighton were at the ready. Denise had left a note and Dana, one of Creighton's favorites, had finagled her way to being his nurse on his arrival. Later, his all-time favorite, Heather, became his nurse and we knew everything would be fine.

It was great for all of us to see the doctors and nurses who had, literally, saved Creighton's life the year before on the job protecting him from harm, this year.

Luckily, for us, Creighton's condition, today, is nowhere near as critical as it was in 2006, so we are assured of a good outcome, this time.

Amazingly, my memories of Creighton's hospital stay in 2006 are all positive and life-affirming. He received world-class care. Our Aetna Health Insurance did its part and Creighton left the hospital in his best health in years.

Every time I hear politicians talking about our broken health care system, I think of our experiences and wonder what they won't do and what they won't say to get votes. They are very likely to ruin a working, albeit imperfect, system and replace it with healthcare on the model of the postoffice.

As for Creighton, he ordered Toni and I out of his room, this evening, when the pretty new nurse arrived for her shift.