BOCprogram
2010-02-25, 11:08pm
Hello artists! What a treat to see so many artists committed to learning more about Beads of Courage, Inc and how your work inspires these children and their families... I will check in from time to time and share stories that hopefully communicate the power of what you are doing daily at the torch! Keep up the amazing work! Colin Smith, RN Program Director
Meet Ivana...member hospital: Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
Story told by her mother...
Towards the end of Ivana’s Induction Phase, prior to starting out
with the Beads of Courage program, she was very ill and didn’t
really care for anything except to be constantly carried or to just
snuggle up in bed because she was so very weak. Once her therapy
started, she just stopped all her activities and games as her
fingers would go into spasms if she focused on something for too
long. She would constantly stumble and fall while running or
playing with her only cousin, Shawna who is a year older and is
very close to Ivana, so she started to lose interest in playing
with her. She didn’t even have any strength to do any of her
studies or homework (we home school Ivana) like coloring or
writing or even reading which she normally enjoys very much.
When the child life staff at Children’s first introduced us to
Beads of Courage, no-offense but we as parents thought this was
really some psycho babble or another coo coo ideaJ We decided at
that point to just use the beads as a way to help distract her from
the harsh reality of her pain and suffering and all of the hospital
procedures, etc. Needless to say that even thought Ivana’s entire
team of doctors and nurses are exceptionally kind and are the type
of caregivers who always do their very best to keep her as
comfortable as possible, she was the one going through it and we
thought that this was maybe a way of helping her to endure – maybe
we could fill them in a jar and that could be her distraction!
We soon saw how excited she started to get about the beads when we
noticed her beginning to memorize her bead colors in relation to
her therapy and could do it without much pain or it being mentally
taxing to focus and this was indeed good news for us. She liked
the beads so well that it started to help her make more sense of
her procedures and all she’s going through.
When we started to see that after a few visits her string of beads
getting longer, then we as parents recognized that the beads really
made sense and there was a logic and planning behind their design.
The simplicity of the program is such that it can be done by any
one leading to a strong sense of accomplishment for the road
traveled. Now we look at it together and can see at a glance her
journey towards healing, punctuated with her hospital stays, her ER
visits, her clinic visits, her transfusions, her chemo and so on.
It has been therapeutic both for Ivana and us to see where she was
and where she is now and what she has been through. It does
uniquely depict our journey together with her and we thank the Lord
for those of you who took the time to plan a program for children
undergoing extreme medical treatment that is easy and simple and
yet enjoyable with the least amount of excursion and mobility on
the part of our little ones.
Meet Ivana...member hospital: Children's Medical Center of Dallas.
Story told by her mother...
Towards the end of Ivana’s Induction Phase, prior to starting out
with the Beads of Courage program, she was very ill and didn’t
really care for anything except to be constantly carried or to just
snuggle up in bed because she was so very weak. Once her therapy
started, she just stopped all her activities and games as her
fingers would go into spasms if she focused on something for too
long. She would constantly stumble and fall while running or
playing with her only cousin, Shawna who is a year older and is
very close to Ivana, so she started to lose interest in playing
with her. She didn’t even have any strength to do any of her
studies or homework (we home school Ivana) like coloring or
writing or even reading which she normally enjoys very much.
When the child life staff at Children’s first introduced us to
Beads of Courage, no-offense but we as parents thought this was
really some psycho babble or another coo coo ideaJ We decided at
that point to just use the beads as a way to help distract her from
the harsh reality of her pain and suffering and all of the hospital
procedures, etc. Needless to say that even thought Ivana’s entire
team of doctors and nurses are exceptionally kind and are the type
of caregivers who always do their very best to keep her as
comfortable as possible, she was the one going through it and we
thought that this was maybe a way of helping her to endure – maybe
we could fill them in a jar and that could be her distraction!
We soon saw how excited she started to get about the beads when we
noticed her beginning to memorize her bead colors in relation to
her therapy and could do it without much pain or it being mentally
taxing to focus and this was indeed good news for us. She liked
the beads so well that it started to help her make more sense of
her procedures and all she’s going through.
When we started to see that after a few visits her string of beads
getting longer, then we as parents recognized that the beads really
made sense and there was a logic and planning behind their design.
The simplicity of the program is such that it can be done by any
one leading to a strong sense of accomplishment for the road
traveled. Now we look at it together and can see at a glance her
journey towards healing, punctuated with her hospital stays, her ER
visits, her clinic visits, her transfusions, her chemo and so on.
It has been therapeutic both for Ivana and us to see where she was
and where she is now and what she has been through. It does
uniquely depict our journey together with her and we thank the Lord
for those of you who took the time to plan a program for children
undergoing extreme medical treatment that is easy and simple and
yet enjoyable with the least amount of excursion and mobility on
the part of our little ones.