A Belgian Hospital Experience

Christopher age 6.

In our second year in Brussels, all three children were attending the International School of Brussels. Christopher was in 1st grade.  On November 7th, there was no school due to Parent-Teacher Conferences.  I scheduled all 3 conferences in the morning.   A kindly British neighbor, Elaine, agreed to watch the boys and Marie-Juliette went over to play with Angela.

I don’t remember much about the conferences but when I arrived home  there was an ambulance in front of Elaine’s house.  Christopher had broken his leg while playing football with a bunch of boys. A big sixth grader had landed on his leg during a big play. When I arrived he was already loaded in the ambulance.  I followed in the car to the hospital in Braine l’Alleud, a neighboring village.

It was determined that he had broken his femur.   He was installed in a hospital bed, his leg pulled straight by weights hanging off the end.  The first night I learned that he would be there for 2 months and that he had a heart murmur that needed to be watched.  It was nearly midnight when I was shooed out of the hospital.  “Madame, your son is going to be here for a long time so he needs to learn to be on his own.”  As I left the ward, Chris was screaming, “Mommy, don’t leave me.”  I’ve never forgotten the pain of that night. 

Village of Braine-l'Alleud.

For the next two months I spent most of the day at the hospital. It was a well-run establishment.  The nurses were very busy and someone needed to help feed Christopher his meals and entertain him. After Marie-Juliette and Charles left for school I went to the hospital.   Over the next weeks we played thousands of games of Shoots and Ladders, Checkers, Connect 4 etc.  I tried unsuccessfully to get Chris to learn to read but he was too antsy.  On several Saturday mornings, our neighbor Phil went over and played with him.  Phil was a Godsend.   Chris was a hyper-active child; so two months in bed was VERY long.  What I wouldn’t have done for a TV or a nice Mindcraft game!  

In the afternoon, I would go home and pick up the other kids and we would go back to the hospital so Chris could interact with his siblings.  One time I went down the hall with Marie-Juliette.  When we came back there was a Play Doh war going on.  Charles was shooting from behind the partially opened door. Chris was pelting Charles and shielding himself with a Checkers board.  There were little balls of Play Doh all over the room.  They were laughing hysterically.

Père Fouettard and Saint Nicolas

If a child is going to be hospitalized for an extended period of time, the month of December is probably ideal.  In Belgium they celebrate Saint Nicolas on December 6th.  Traditionally children put their shoes outside their bedroom door and in the morning they find chocolate, cookies, candy and dried fruit.   There’s also the Père Fouettard lurking around.  (“fouetter” means to whip in French)  Père Fouettard visits bad children and offers them chunks of coal. He might even whip them and take them off in his burlap bag. Luckily visits to children in hospitals are restricted to St. Nicolas.

Speculaas - Belgian Almond Cookies

It seemed like every day there were visitors in the halls:  a choral group who sang Christmas carols; some ladies who had knitted soft dolls for the children; puppeteers to entertain the kids; prayers from members of the clergy and lots of chocolate and candy.  This frivolity continued right through Christmas into New Year’s day.

Christopher was in the far bed next to the window.  Several children occupied the other bed, although it was often empty.  I particularly remember an 8 year old American boy with cystic fibrosis. He was hospitalized twice because he had difficulty breathing. Unfortunately he was too sick to interact much with Chris.  The second time he came in he had a bronchial infection and died the second night.  While Chris was asleep they removed the little fellow from the room.

Another roommate was a painfully thin Belgian girl of about 10 years.  She bore bruises and had a broken arm as I remember.  Her father was a big, brawny guy and her mother, a mouse.  The child was visited by several social workers.  Although they pulled a curtain between the beds, I could hear the conversation on the other side.  It was obvious that the social workers thought the little girl had been abused.  The story her parents told was that she had fallen against a radiator while playing.  The social workers tried to get the truth from the child.  They tried to trick her up and went at her from different angles.  But they couldn’t break her.  She stuck to the family line.  I remember the silvery, little voice, “Non, non ce n’était pas comme ça.”  “No, no, that’s not how it happened.” It broke my heart.