Children's Hospital

Today I went to visit my niece at Children's Hospital in Seattle. The surgery has been scheduled for tomorrow afternoon (if I remember correctly) and should take a few hours. They were originally going to do it next Monday, because her blood pressure was pretty high, but I think that they finally realized that they were dealing with a 2.5 year old little girl who had never been to a hospital before and had all sorts of strange people poking and prodding, and on top of that, her parents were probably a little scared too. I imagine that all of these things made a minor contribution to elevated blood pressure levels. But now that she has been there for a while and gotten used to everything, surprisingly enough the blood pressure has dropped down to more normal levels so the surgery has been moved forward. It gives them a better shot at being out of the hospital before Christmas. But she seems mostly like her normal self. She seemed kind of grumpy today, I took some pictures of her with my cellphone camera and I only got frowny faces with one half smile. Maybe if I get a usb cord for my phone I will upload them.
Children's Hospital is a nice and friendly environment. If I had a child with problems, I would take him there. But you walk in there, and after a few minutes you want to leave. It is probably due to the fact that it is such a nice place, that you just think about being at home and so you just want to go home. They have murals on the walls, family lounges with small kitchenettes where you can put and prepare food you bring, playrooms and lots of toys for the kids... just about everything you could want. Except that it is not home.