Beads of Courage

Some hospitals offer a Beads of Courage program, some of you may have heard of this, it's a program that has the parents keep a journal about all their child's medical procedures and such and the program has coordinating beads to symbolize that procedure, they put them all together in a string/necklace and you add to it as you go.  I don't know if Primary Children's Medical Center offers this program, I haven't looked into it only because I'm not sure Miss K qualifies but I decided there should be no reason I couldn't do it myself right?  A mother on one of the Facebook heart pages I follow shared the list of procedures with corrosponding beads so we could get our own :).

Here I will journal all Miss K's "procedures" for her Beads of Courage :).

Reason                                                                      Bead Color
Cardiac Catheterization                                             *Tortoise & Glass Selection
Central Line/PICC/Port Insertion & Removal            *Orange
Clinic Visit                                                                *Blue
CICU/ICU Admission                                              *Glass Star
Dialysis/TPN                                                            *Dark Green
Dressing Change                                                       *Gray
Echocardiogram                                                        *Glow in the Dark
Emergency/Unusual Occurrence/Ambulance Ride      *Magenta
General Surgery                                                        *Silver Star
Infusions (Antibiotics/Pressor Support/PCA)             *Purple
Inpatient Admission/Sleepover in Hospital                 *Yellow
Isolation/Contact Precautions                                     *Lime
Learning New Medications/Medication Challenges     *White
Pokes (IV Starts/Blood Draws/IM or SQ Injections)  *Black
Tests/Scans (CT Scan/EKG/MRI/X-ray)                    *Light Green
Transfusions                                                               *Red
Tube Insertions & Removal (NG/Chest Tube/Foley)    *Aqua
Ventilator Support                                                       *Pink
Visits from Care Team (PT/OT/Others)                       *Rainbow

Milestones
Act of Courage/Extraordinary Experience                    *Glass Selection
Cardiac Surgery                                                          *Square Heart
ECMO                                                                        *Round Fima
Infection/Rejection Free Period                                    *Special Selection
Transplant                                                                    *Glass Heart Selection
Discharge from Hospital                                               *Member's Choice

Miss K's Journal:

Clinic Visit                                                      14
ICU Admission                                               2
Echocardiograhm                                            3
Emergency                                                      1
Unusual Occurance                                         2
Ambulance Ride                                              1
Antibiotics Infusion                                          1
Inpatient Admission                                         1
Learning New Medications                              4
Medication Challenges                                     2
Pokes                                                             46
Tests                                                               24
Special Accomplishment                                   7
Discharge from Hospital                                   2