Month: January 2016

Friends and Expectations

Cardiac Ward Friends.

You’d expect that I made lots of friends in hospital. Friends with similar problems as I had but that didn’t happen. I did not make one single acquaintance in any hospital pediatric cardiac ward that I’d call a friendship. This only occurred to me very recently. I believe even as a child I didn’t see the point. A hospital stay was so brief and people came from so far and wide that it really wasn’t much point in cultivating friendships. I’m well aware that I’m very introverted and don’t make friends easily but I had an aversion to making friends in hospital. There was another problem with hospital friends, especially in the cardiac ward. Even though the hospital stay was short, sometimes their journey didn’t last long. It was horrifyingly close to home. Continue reading Friends and Expectations

The Little Adult.

Your child will learn to cope. I did. I had family (cousins) and friends that could run and play, doing active things for hours. In group games I would often find the least active role and take that. With one-on-one play I often insisted on playing games I knew I could cope with physically. I could keep up for a little bit but when I got tired I sought out the company of my parents. This had a few purposes.

  1. Adults tend to sit around and chat. For them it’s quiet normal to be sedentary. When you’re around the adults, they’ll tell you to keep quiet and sit still. No problem there.
  2. My peers would not bother me with the peer pressure whines of “but come on and play – we’re all playing!” Why? Because the adults were watching and listening.
  3. I could usually sneak a bite of descent food.

Continue reading The Little Adult.