I heard them coming from around the corner. Hiccups. Lots of them, loud and clear.
I was clowning at the doorway to a room where the patient had contact restrictions. But those hiccups, coming frequently and progressively louder, grabbed my attention.
Around the corner, and then there he was, all smiles . . . it was the X-Man!
We first met around three weeks ago. X-Man was the nickname I gave him, a fun little derivation of his name. He seemed tickled with that nickname, so it stuck. It fit him well, too, since he was being kind of a superhero about his condition and having to be in the hospital at all, smiling and in a good mood.
A big smile greeted me. He was doing laps around the ED with his mom. I swung my attention back to the patient in the room, but I wanted to continue to interact and play with the X-Man, especially because of the lively stream of hiccups that kept bouncing all the way down the hallway. What a gift.
With every hiccup, I jumped a bit, kind of like a full body hiccup. Maybe I could smile or laugh the hiccups out of him.
By the time I’d finished that visit, X-Man had circled the floor one more time. Dr. Fowlbreath and I set out in hot pursuit, rubbernecking around every corner – because that’s what rubber chickens do – to see if we could spot him. He was headed into his room. We asked if we could come in, too, and he waved us in. Still grinning ear-to-ear.
We’d visited quite some time the first time we met, so I had to reach deep into my pocket for something new and different and engaging for a 10-year old boy. Did a simple card trick, then showed him in slow motion, then – swearing him to the magician’s/clown’s oath of secrecy – showed him how to do, with a little bit on the why for comedy, distraction, and illusion. Made him promise to practice it so he could show me the next time we met.
Since he was the X-Man, straight out of Marvel, I left him with a superhero sticker complete with sound effects. Pow! And you know what? The hiccups were gone.
Before leaving PEDS for the ED, I visited with a delightful teenage girl. Her pen drawings instantly caught my attention, so I had her tell me about them. She was working on a self-portrait of her own animated superhero character who she called Hazel.
I asked her if she wanted to see one of my drawings. She nodded ‘yes,’ so I pulled out my pad and crayons and said I wanted to draw her blood. Yes, it’s a dumb joke, but she got it and played along.
After the blood draw, I made her a paper napkin rose to wish her well, and while I did that, she sketched out a quick rose of her own to give me. Little personal gifts like that from patients are the BEST!
I was clowning at the doorway to a room where the patient had contact restrictions. But those hiccups, coming frequently and progressively louder, grabbed my attention.
Around the corner, and then there he was, all smiles . . . it was the X-Man!
We first met around three weeks ago. X-Man was the nickname I gave him, a fun little derivation of his name. He seemed tickled with that nickname, so it stuck. It fit him well, too, since he was being kind of a superhero about his condition and having to be in the hospital at all, smiling and in a good mood.
A big smile greeted me. He was doing laps around the ED with his mom. I swung my attention back to the patient in the room, but I wanted to continue to interact and play with the X-Man, especially because of the lively stream of hiccups that kept bouncing all the way down the hallway. What a gift.
With every hiccup, I jumped a bit, kind of like a full body hiccup. Maybe I could smile or laugh the hiccups out of him.
By the time I’d finished that visit, X-Man had circled the floor one more time. Dr. Fowlbreath and I set out in hot pursuit, rubbernecking around every corner – because that’s what rubber chickens do – to see if we could spot him. He was headed into his room. We asked if we could come in, too, and he waved us in. Still grinning ear-to-ear.
We’d visited quite some time the first time we met, so I had to reach deep into my pocket for something new and different and engaging for a 10-year old boy. Did a simple card trick, then showed him in slow motion, then – swearing him to the magician’s/clown’s oath of secrecy – showed him how to do, with a little bit on the why for comedy, distraction, and illusion. Made him promise to practice it so he could show me the next time we met.
Since he was the X-Man, straight out of Marvel, I left him with a superhero sticker complete with sound effects. Pow! And you know what? The hiccups were gone.
Before leaving PEDS for the ED, I visited with a delightful teenage girl. Her pen drawings instantly caught my attention, so I had her tell me about them. She was working on a self-portrait of her own animated superhero character who she called Hazel.
I asked her if she wanted to see one of my drawings. She nodded ‘yes,’ so I pulled out my pad and crayons and said I wanted to draw her blood. Yes, it’s a dumb joke, but she got it and played along.
After the blood draw, I made her a paper napkin rose to wish her well, and while I did that, she sketched out a quick rose of her own to give me. Little personal gifts like that from patients are the BEST!
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