Adolescent ward or children general surgery ward for 11 yearsyear old with learning disabilitiessabilities

[elliejjtiny]

Ds is 10 and about to have 2 operations at our local children's hospital, one day surgery and one overnight. He will be 11 by the time He has the operations. He has learning disabilities with an IQ in the late 40's. I was looking for a video tour of the ward when I noticed that the general surgery ward normally takes children up to age 10 and then 11+ year old's go to the adolescent ward. Although 11-16 year old's can sometimes go on the general surgery ward. I don't know if I should ask if ds can go on the general surgery ward or if I should just give the adolescent ward a try. I know we won't be in for long but a few hours can feel like a week when you are waiting for elective surgery.

Disclaimer: I know this is a first world trivial problem but I always focus on the tiny problems to distract myself from the big ones like the actual operations.

[WhatsitWiggle]

How is he with noise? As I would have thought the adolescent ward will be quieter. Our local children's hospital doesn't have an adolescent ward and my 16yo autistic DD hates it every time we're there because of the noise of the under 5s. A teenager ward would be her idea of perfection!

[SausageMonkey2]

I agree with @WhatsitWiggle I’d go adolescent if you can. Currently on a mixed childrens ward with my 5yo and it is LOUD constantly.

[Snugglemonkey]

I absolutely understand about getting so tuned in to details about the stay. I think I wanted to micromanage everything to fill that massive scary gap of being powerless. So

I am not going to patronise you and say it is grand. It is really, really stressful. So the small things grow arms and legs.

We spent time in Nicu. For the most part, it was all about keeping themselves to themselves. Other than the stress about my wee one. I liked it tbh. I liked that people did not bother me when I was so caught up in what my baby was doing. Once things relaxed a bit.

When we moved to special care, it was pretty expected that people would come, but there were still lots of messages.

[fortifiedwithtea]

Does your hospital have a specific intellectual disabilities nurse? Where I live there is a nurse who I could contact and she would be available to explain the whole process of going into hospital. I hope that this role is wide spread and not unique to where I live.

Will there be a play specialist available in the adolescent ward? Would you want to stay overnight with your child?

I think you meed to find out what support from the hospital is available and then decide what is best.

[elliejjtiny]

Thank you all. He is mostly ok with noise. He has mild hearing loss and wears hearing aids so normally if the noise is too much he just takes his hearing aids out. He mostly only struggles with high pitched screaming though. There isn't a play specialist on the adolescent ward but there is an activities co-ordinator which I think is fairly similar. They have games consoles and tv/dvd's on the ward and he can also access the big playroom that is for all the children in the hospital to use. Not sure about an intellectual disability nurse, I couldn't find one when I googled. There is a hospital passport for children with additional needs so I will make sure I update that as it's been a long time since he stayed in the children's hospital.

[x2boys]

Are they aware of his learning disabilities ?
In my hospital.children with disabilities are give a " passport" thing so that staff are aware and can make adaption ,s
My son is nearly 14 now(he's severely autistic and has severe learning disabilities) thankfully it's a,long time since he's needed to go into hospital but the children's ward had a sensory room ,and the play therpists were always very helpful.