The holidays bring to mind towns frosted in snow, mugs of steaming cocoa, warm sugar cookies and toasty fires.
But for some children, the holidays mean white-walled hospital rooms, shrill beeping machines and IV bags filled with fluids that slowly drip into their bodies.
Shands Children’s Hospital at UF usually has about 50 patients over the holidays despite efforts to get them home, said guest services specialist Ginny Profumo.
But Shands’ staff and Gainesville residents have ensured that the young patients’ time in the hospital will be much merrier.
Decorations, presents and cards bearing tidings of a speedy recovery flood in each holiday season.
“We try to make the best of the bad situation,” she said. “They’re missing out on the holiday cheer at home with their own family.”
Last week, Profumo turned the pediatric floor into a winter wonderland, with glittering snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.
“It’s the staff that does everything with their own time and money,” she said. “It’s so beautiful.”
The hospital does not have much storage space, so Profumo keeps most of the decorations in her garage until the week after Thanksgiving, when they deck the hospital’s halls.
A group of UF medical students sing carols, and a doctor and his wife dress up as Santa and Mrs. Claus and bring gifts.
“It’s just like a labor of love,” she said. “People love to do it.”
Nurses sort through the donations and choose the right gifts for each patient, she said, so that each child wakes up with a perfect gift on Christmas morning.
UF student group Friends for Life of America set up a table on Turlington Plaza last week to add to the holiday cheer, making cards for pediatric cancer patients.
The holiday reminder brightens the patients’ stay, Profumo said.
“I think it really helps their emotional well-being,” she said, “because even if they don’t feel good, there are good things going on around them.”
