One evening, while going about her nightly routine, Jolanda McCoy noticed her four-year old son, Carter, had a low-grade fever. “Since there were no other symptoms, I did what I would normally do, and gave him the appropriate amount of fever reducer. He went to bed as usual,” explained Jolanda. The next morning Carter’s parents noticed that his eye was starting to swell.
Jolanda and Billy Joe, Carter’s dad, immediately took Carter to the local emergency room in Cairo, Ga. He was admitted and monitored, but when his eye started swelling rapidly, Carter was transferred to the Tallahassee Memorial Children’s Center.
Soon after arriving in the TMH Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), a CT scan was performed on Carter and his medical team located an abscess behind his right eye. He was diagnosed with a periorbital abscess with associated sinusitis - an infection of the sinuses and adjacent tissue in the cheek and eye. Carter was rushed to surgery where Adrian Roberts, MD, an otolaryngologist also known as an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist, was able to endoscopically drain the infection from his eye and affected sinuses. “It all happened so fast,” Jolanda recalled.
A hospital can be a scary place for a sick child, especially in situations like Carter’s, but it doesn’t have to be. As the McCoys learned, Tallahassee Memorial has the region’s only certified Child Life Specialist on staff to provide kid-friendly explanations for tests and procedures, as well as procedural support. Lauren Sherrill, Child Life Specialist at Tallahassee Memorial, said, “I talked to Carter and told him the CT scan takes pictures of the inside of our bodies. And who doesn’t like to have their picture taken? ”The day after Carter’s surgery, Lauren introduced the McCoys to an evidence-based educational behavioral intervention program known as Creating Opportunities for Parent Empowerment, or COPE. This program was originally created to help parents with children in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU), but Tallahassee Memorial became the first hospital in the country to apply the COPE program to children from two to seven years old admitted to the PICU.
The COPE program is designed to reduce stress for families with a child in the hospital, empower parents and caregivers to be actively involved in their child’s medical care and improve the overall outcome for each patient. It features a series of digital and written material for the parents and play activities for children. At TMH, the COPE program is implemented in the NICU and PICU.
Carter’s grandmother, Connie Saul, was by Carter’s side during the majority of his 10-day stay at the Children’s Center. “The program consists of great information and a workbook with activities for parents and their children to perform. The book Jenny’s Wish was a favorite because, as an adult caregiver, it gave me a better understanding of how Carter felt,” explained Connie. “Carter particularly liked the medical play because it gave him a way to participate and play out what was happening to him.”
“It meant a lot to our family that he was able to play and somewhat forget about his illness during that time,” said Jolanda. “He received such outstanding treatment. TMH is awesome!” According to Billy Joe and Jolanda, Carter is happy, healthy (with no vision issues) and back to playing with his friends and toys.
