At quick glance, these two new friends appear to be enjoying a typical afternoon play date -- creating squishy sculptures with pink Play Doh, doodling with magic markers and exchanging shy smiles and giggles.
A closer look, however, reveals their matching hospital socks and IV poles -- perhaps the only obvious giveaways that 8-year-olds Rowyn Rodelander and Kylie Braford are both recovering from surgery at CHKD.
Within days of each other, these two second-graders had their appendixes removed at CHKD, and a trip to the brightly colored playroom is all part of the hospital's kid-friendly recovery plan.
Comprehensive pediatric care means that every aspect of care is designed with kids in mind -- from flavored anesthesia, to colorful casts, to red wagons that take kids to surgery, to playrooms stocked with craft supplies and new friends.
Pediatric medicine depends on physicians, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses and and care providers who specialize in children. Though CHKD surgeons remove nearly 400 appendixes each year, they understand no pediatric surgery is routine, and each child is unique.
CHKD is unique, too -- the only children's hospital of its kind in Virginia where treatment includes slushies after surgery, mobile video game stations at the bedside and occasionally, a furry visit from a poodle or golden retriever.
CHKD is truly more than a hospital. Just ask Kylie and Rowyn.
Published in CHKD's KidStuff Magazine, Winter 2016
Written by Sharon Cindrich • Photograph by Susan Lowe
