A Sad Day of Remembering

Isabella just completed the first day of chemo.  Not much to report yet.  Hopefully, we'll be out of here on Saturday.

The last time we were in the NYU Pediatric Unit was on June 5, 2009, about a year and a half ago.  On that day, we headed home after Isabella completed her recovery from a stem cell transplant.  We were hoping to never have to return here.  As we walked into the unit, we were immediately flooded with emotion as we went through all the routines of hospital admission and treatment.  Overall it's a sad day as we remembered a lot of things we were hoping to forget:

• ...remembering all the nurses, nurse assistants, maintenance crew, and even the lunch ladies and having them remember Isabella
• ...remembering how horrible the elevator banks are at NYU (hint:  during peak times, jump on an available elevator no matter what direction it's heading.  If you wait until it comes back, chances are it'll be full.)
• ...remembering you can save time and keep warm if you're heading uptown by using the Rusk entrance instead of the NYU main entrance (and you can visit the botanical garden on the way)
• ...watching Isabella instinctively offer her arm to have her blood pressure checked and remembering to hold her own shirt up as the nurse checks on her mediport
• ...packing shorts and t-shirts knowing how hot it is in the rooms
• ...remembering that the rooms are so dry that we used to lay wet towels over the radiators to get some moisture in the air
• ...remembering how awful the wifi connection is at the hospital because it kicks you off every few minutes and you have to reconnect
• ...remembering all the items that I used to "spy" as we played I Spy when we walked around the unit
• ...remembering the hopscotch drawn on the floor and how Isabella used to play on it.  She can no longer play hopscotch because her right leg is so weak.
• ...knowing how to work the IV unit
• ...remembering that the DVD Library has odd hours so rushing there as soon as they announced they were open (today, they were opened from 7:30 to 7:45)
• ...remembering how crappy it is to not have the window side of the room

And that was just after being here a few hours.  I'm sure we'll hit a few more before Saturday.