We had three 3-week-long hospital stays where my daughter was in room isolation due to receiving autologous bone marrow transplants. My daughter spent a lot of time on her ipad, which was hard for us to admit to because we always thought we’d be the parents who didn’t allow much screen time. As soon as she was feeling better she always let the ipad go without a problem. We also made sure we had a lot of sensory play for her since she was stuck in one room with little diversity. Play sand, playdoh, finger painting, clay, and finger foods were joyous for her. Our daughter loved activities on the window such as window clings and dry erase markers that we could clean off before we left. We would get something fun and new each hospital stay to try to make the experience a little unique each time. Overall, just keeping ourselves as calm as possible and engaging our daughter in regular play despite the circumstances around us helped everyone get through.

Our daughter is a very social and energetic girl, and despite so much time isolated from a lot of the world. Our family is stronger because of the time we spent being intentional and allowing some of our regular dreams for our life to transform with our circumstances. The biggest help was dreaming together about our life after isolation was over. We planned a trip we were able to take the next summer and every day we were on that trip felt like the best day of our life. Now that we are at home instead of stuck in one room, we have made the most of our ability to spend time in our yard and learn more about plants and animals around us. Have fun, make art, and dream big! This too shall pass!

– Elise’s mom