Clowning around

I was asked to be a parent speaker at a conference for The Humour Foundation last week. If you don't know what they do, go to the website and have a look, but THF is responsible for the wonderful work done by the Clown Doctors and Elder Clowns. I was asked to be a parent speaker because Clown Doctors have been a part of our lives since they first careened into the Royal Children's Hospital many moons ago.

I had such a lovely time at their conference. What a wonderful bunch of people! I felt so welcomed, so at home and so grateful for the wonderful bunch of human beings that bring so much joy.

My speech made the clowns cry....and they gave me a standing ovation. I broke the clowns, people!

After my speech they made me an honorary clown!

And then we had a raucous game of Bogan Bingo. Folks, you have not played bingo until you've played Bogan Bingo with a bunch of clowns!

The following is the transcript of my speech.

Hi everyone and thank you for having me. Yes, I am Leisa and I am Mum to four now adult children – Sarah is 29, Chloe is 26, Tim is 25 and Riley is 20.

At first when I was asked by Jo to come and speak I didn’t really know what I was going to tell you. I have no words of wisdom to impart and know nothing about clowning other than the fact that my children can tend to get highly embarrassed with my antics down at the local shopping centre – groovy dancing in the aisles, lip synching to the music they play over the PA and having conversations with automatic tellers.

So….I’ll tell you what your impact has been on our story.

The Royal Children’s Hospital has been a part of my life, our lives, for as long as I can remember. I went there as a baby, when I was six and again when I was 14. I was fortunate not to experience any complications in regards to my condition so my own visits to the hospital were few and far between, however my memories of being there are seared into my brain – and not necessarily in a good way. Appointments and treatments didn’t seem as child focussed or holistic – and of course back then there were no such thing as Clown Doctors who I am SURE would have made my visit a whole lot more memorable in a GOOD way! In the 1970’s the focus seemed to be on the clinical side – diagnosis and symptoms and wanting to know if I was reaching all the expected milestones rather than who I was as a person.

I’m glad I didn’t go there too often.

Most of my dealings with the Royal Children’s Hospital were as an adult – as a mother. Our first visit was a prenatal visit in 1986 and then became regular occurrences after the birth of our first daughter back in 1987.

We never expected that the Children’s Hospital would become such a big part of our lives. As you can see, I was born with a form of dwarfism – the most common form known as achondroplasia. My husband at the time was also born with dwarfism – a different type to mine. Both of us enjoyed relatively healthy childhoods with very little or no medical or surgical intervention. When we decided to have children we had no reason to expect that our children would not have the same experience.

It didn’t work out that way.

The Royal Children’s Hospital became a big part of our lives for almost thirty years. In the early years of raising our children, every few months we would spend an entire day at the Children’s as we’d have multiple appointments at several clinics. You name it, we’ve been there – ultrasound, x-ray, MRI, medical photography, neurology, neurosurgery, bone dysplasia, genetics, spinal and scoliosis clinic, respiratory, urology, encopresis, physiotherapy, Day Surgery, the Operating Theatres, Recovery, Inpatients, Outpatients and the dungeon – which is what Sarah used to call the room where they’d make her spinal brace.

We used to know the old hospital like the backs of our hands and I used to joke that we’d been almost everywhere except Intensive Care.

It wasn’t such a joke when we ended up there too after a frantic dash to Emergency one morning.

In the early days of our life at the hospital we learned the waiting game, and that appointment times were only guidelines. Your appointment may have been scheduled for 9am but if you were seen before 11 it was a good day. Back then PAGERS for parents weren’t even something considered. You get a PAGER now if you get tired of waiting and want to wander off and play in the playground or go and look at the meerkats! LUXURY!!!!

No, back then it was sit and wait – and over the years we learned to prepare for a day at the hospital. We armed ourselves with snacks, drinks, books, art supplies, toys, activities and changes of clothes. It was like packing for a weekend away! We learned to wait – and I guess that’s why they call us patients – because you learn to be PATIENT and wait your turn. Over the years I would people watch and learned how to pick a NEWBIE from a mile off. After 15 – 20 minutes waiting they’ll get up and enquire at the desk, mentioning the time of their appointment and the length of time they’d been waiting. I’d chuckle to myself and say, “There’s a new one. Sit down love. They’ll get to you…eventually…”

I don’t know when we first encountered the Clown Doctors doing the rounds. I know I had a few kids by then though and was a well-seasoned and tired hospital parent.

There were a group of irreverent clowns careening down the corridors towards the lifts – making noise and merriment, commenting about silly things, making jokes with children, parents and staff alike and bringing with them an element of fun. They stopped and talked with us and I specifically remember Dr. Peg who was blowing bubbles and eating them as they floated down, telling the children that they tasted like strawberries. She then became distracted and started rummaging about in her coat pockets. She pulled out a sample bottle, containing yellow liquid.

“Mmmm….!” She said……”Urine sample!”

And proceeded to drink the lot in one gulp!

Hospital visits, for me at least, became a lot more fun.

When I was preparing to speak today I decided to do some research and ask my children for some of their memories of the Clown Doctors – after all, the children are who you’re there for, right? It’s a CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL so the focus is on children, I would assume.

Each of them told me that they remember the Clown Doctors being there, they remember talking and laughing with them….but they were so overwhelmed with everything that was happening to them that they found it difficult to focus and fully engage with them. Their thoughts and worries were focussed on their wonderings about what was happening to them and listening out for the one word they dreaded the most – SURGERY.

But please don’t think your antics were in vain. They weren’t. Please don’t think your spending time with is was wasted. It wasn’t. You helped enormously.

You helped me – their mother. And I wanted to let you know how important that was and is – helping the WHOLE family, not just being there for the kids – for although the actual procedure or surgery or condition is happening to the child and the focus should naturally be on them, the situation is affecting the WHOLE family.

And a Mum needs to be there for her child – and the other children too if there’s more than one. Yet sometimes – often in my case – she becomes so overwhelmed with the enormity of what’s going on that the relief of the Clown Doctors coming on and easing some of that tension…..well……it’s invaluable….and so healing…..even for the mother.

Honestly, after interacting with you, engaging in your silliness and sharing a laugh I felt a little more relaxed and ready to continue supporting my child.

So, I wanted to say Thank You.

Thank You for being there.

Thank you for bringing your brand of silliness that helped so much in lessening the tension.

Thank you for prescribing a truckload of chocolates for a four year old girl who was waiting to have both her legs surgically broken and reset with pins and screws and a wicked looking frame that we learned to manage.

Thank you for helping me learn that to cope with the trauma of the whole thing we needed huge doses of fun and silliness along with the midazolam, the diazepam and all those other drugs ending with PAM.

Thank you for listening for heartbeats in foreheads, and elbows and knees and big toes.

Thank you for trying to climb IV poles, running away with wheelchairs and looking at charts and telling kids that they had the biggest and smartest looking brains you’d ever seen.

Thank you for coming to see us after we had just endured the scariest and most horrible times in Emergency – where we went right to the edge and came back again, where people worked intensely and quickly, where I heard words I didn’t want to hear, saw things I didn’t want to see and was possibly more confused and terrified than I’d ever been my entire life/

Thank you for your gentle and beautiful brand of humour after we transferred out of ICU and back onto the ward. Your presence was so calming and reassuring. You broke the tension. You brought back smiles and giggles. It was your presence that assured this mother that things were OK – that the terrible night we had endured was over and we were back on the road to recovery. All you had to do was be silly. You blew raspberries on the windows, you knocked things over you juggled random things and then you flattened your faces against the window, making my girl smile the most beautiful smile in the world.

Your presence at the hospital is such an integral and important part of hospital life. You bring life and fun and silliness to a place where sometimes people can get lost in uncertainty and fear. You calm nerves, bring distraction, dissolve tension and help us all to remember that life is good and silliness and laughter is a vital part of getting better and healing.

All my kids are not kids anymore and they have graduated from the clinics at the Royal Children’s Hospital and attend adult clinics at the Royal Melbourne and Monash. They’re all responsible for their own medical care now and they do it on their own. This Mama has had to learn how to relinquish that “control”.

However I did accompany one of my daughters to her visit to the Spinal Clinic as an adult at the Royal Melbourne. It felt as though we were at square one – starting all over again. The building was unfamiliar, we were unsure of where we were going, the corridors were darker and the walls were plain and missing all the bright, happy art work we had been accustomed to for so long. We felt nervous and small.

And one of us commented……

“You know what this place needs? Clown Doctors. I’d feel so much better if Clown Doctors were here!”

And it was in that moment that I realised how important you guys are. You really are.

So thank you.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being there.