‘ Wendy ’ s Welcome ’ Eases Children ’ s Hospital Fears

SHARON (CBS) — Going to the Emergency Room can be scary, especially for children. But one local girl is making a trip to the ER a lot less intimidating for kids and their parents. You wouldn’t know it to look at her but 12-year-old Wendy Wooden of Sharon has been a very sick girl. At the age of three, she developed an E. coli infection, which damaged multiple organs and she required a kidney transplant. Wendy spent hundreds of days at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). So when a neighbor’s children needed to be admitted, she turned to Wendy and her mom with lots of questions. What should she bring? What should she expect? And a light bulb went off. “We thought maybe we should write something that would explain what the hospital was like to other kids,” says Darcy Daniels, Wendy’s mom. Wendy appears the same in her book as she does in real life, which helps other kids relate. (WBZ-TV) What initially started as a coloring book, turned into something much more: an animated video called “Wendy’s Welcome.”  It’s all thanks to the Boston-based architectural firm, Payette, which donated 1,500 man-hours to the project. “There were a lot of things that connected to what we do,” Stuart Bauer, an architect at Payette, said.  “We make animations about our buildings. We tell stories with the way we do presentations. We draw a lot.” From her mannerisms to her voice to her signature hat, cartoon Wendy is just like the real one which ...
Source: WBZ-TV - Breaking News, Weather and Sports for Boston, Worcester and New Hampshire - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Health Healthwatch Local News Syndicated Local Children Dr. Mallika Marshall Hospital Source Type: news