T.J.'s Exciting Day at the Hospital! Pictures Coming Soon!

Today, I kept T.J. home from school and had him go to the hospital with me to see Jiliang. Things have been really confusing and emotional for T.J. First, he got a new sister who was too cute for words; and he struggled with wanting to like her, but was afraid he might get knocked out of the pecking order. Then, they became best friends, and were inseparable. When she went into the hospital, he was so afraid that something might happen to her.
A few weeks ago, I heard on the radio that my school district was going to be sending our lay-off notices for the fall. T.J. walked into school shortly after that. I didn't realize how serious that T.J. took the news. He was quiet all day in school, and then out of nowhere he said, "My mom lost her job today" very sadly. You see, our neighbor's house was recently sold after being in foreclosure. T.J. is starting to see the effects of the Michigan economy around us. Last week, he asked, "If you lose your job, are we going to lose our house?" I assured him that we would be okay.
Having Jiliang in the hospital has be hard for him. He couldn't understand why we would go to the cafeteria and leave her in her room, let alone come home without her. Yesterday was an emotional day for him, because we told him that she had a cold and we didn't want him to get it. He was speechless when he couldn't see her. Of course, a trip to the Family Resource Center put him in great spirits.
Therefore, I decided that he needed a day to rejuvenate his spirits, and see his sister, because he misses her, and he is grieving her absence terribly. He picks flowers for her on recess with his friends, and he draws several pictures and writes letters for her at school. When he arrived at Jiliang's ICU room, he drilled her nurse, Lisa: "How many days until my sister comes home? 1? 2? 3? What? 14?" Hopefully, it won't be that long.
He needed a day to recoup and just be a kid. I also knew that he needed a positive association with Mott's Children's hospital. Today, he got to see Jiliang. While we were there, we watched Tom and Jerry in Chinese, and he ate orange sherbert. :) Then, we were headed to the Family Resource room, and saw a Therapaws (Therapy dog) Golden Retriever on the way there. T.J. was able to pet him.
After we went to see the fish aquarium, we headed to the game and activity area. It was there that we received an exciting call from the ICU. Jane called to tell us that Survival Flight called back and had an opening for him to tour the Survival Flight helicopter on one of the landing pads near the Emergency Room. We were also able to check out the Survival Flight dispatch area, which I thought was particulary cool, because I used to dispatch for U of M DPS. We got to see all of the current planes, helicopters and vehicles on the computerized map. Jeff, the Survival Flight pilot, treated T.J. like a king. Our tour was just less than one hour. He got a Survival Flight pin and some S.F. tatoos as well.
After that exciting adventure and riding the escalators up and down for 15 minutes, we met up with Scott. We all had dinner together while T.J. talked about his helicopter experience. Then, we visited Jiliang, who was doing much better today. Today, he was begging not to leave the hospital. I certainly think that my boy needed a day to de-stress, and see that his sister was doing better.