What and how to send something to the hospital?

[sandandsea]

My SIL is in the hospital for an undetermined amount of time on the opposite coast. I want to send something nice and useful for her. Any ideas? Magazines, books, movies? What would you most appreciate? We already sent some chocolate covered strawberries to be delivered tomorrow. (We confirmed those are safe. Flowers are not permitted.)

[waverly]

Can the hospital receive shipments? Otherwise I would send to a family member in the area that will be visiting her. Probably books and magazines for me and chapstick. Most hospitals now have it where you can log into your own netflix account or bring a laptop to watch movies already. And they don't all have DVD players.

I don't know what she has there already- robe, slippers, i-tunes gift card to buy music? Favorite snacks and drinks, so she doesn't have to get them from the cafeteria.

[covergirl82]

I'm sorry to hear about your SIL, sandandsea. I agree with waverly on sending something with family in the area who can take it to her. I would think books and magazines would be nice. Does she like to knit or anything like that?

[k3am]

I have learned through our various stays that they all have various levels of technology in them. We had a 6 day stay a hospital that had... a VHS player. Yes. A VHS player. And definitely no ability to stream anything on wifi. We've stayed at 4 hospitals in the last 2.5 years, and none of them had any kind of special technology like logging into netflix. Only one hospital had wifi that was any good, and the others were okay for cruising message boards, but definitely not watching movies.

Gift cards for buying movies or reupping a data plan on her phone if wifi sucks, a netflix subscription, etc. Some freaking slippers. Hospital slippers are really, really crappy. They need to be non-slip. Lotion. Chapstick. A manicure set, because you always seem to break a nail and the gift shops never have a nail file. If she doesn't have a tablet already, potentially getting her one of the more affordable kindles (may not be in the budget, but would be a lifesaver if she didn't have one and it was in your budget). 

[waverly]

k3am, ha ha. I guess our children's hospital is really new.

[sudokufan]

I'll +1 k3am and say if you can pick up a Kindle paperwhite or even one of the cheaper Fires it wold probably be a huge hit. Unless she has one already, in which case gift card to get new books/apps.

I'd also love puzzle books, and since I'm into crafting, any smallish craft kit that includes the tools to complete it. Assuming she's well enough to be bored...

[k3am]

Dec 5, 2017 14:18:42 GMT -5 waverly said:

k3am , ha ha. I guess our children's hospital is really new.

We're just that lucky, I guess. Stanford had their own kind of interface that we were able to browse their mini version of Netflix on. I think it had 8 movies and a few games. My guess is that outside of peds, they had more options. Stanford was also the hospital with great wifi and OMG the best food ever. Like.. restaurant quality food. It was also, unfortunately, the first hospital we had a stay with DD at, so our expectations were way too high, since the next one was the VHS/no wifi hospital and all the food was microwavable TV dinner type stuff. So at least for the NEXT stay, we knew to be prepared.

[k3am]

Also random aside.. show your kid a VHS tape. They'll just look at it like WTF is that?!?! And that's when you'll officially know you're old, old, old.

[2chatter]

If i were stuck in a hospital, I would want to use that time to do things I never get to figure out at home. Off the top of my mind are figure out the best apps (lists, calendar, photo enhancement, money tracking, reading tracking, health and fitness), best podcasts and how to get into that world, sign up for Ebates and other programs, put all family birthdays into the google calendar, best recent nonfiction and fiction, best streaming - Google Play or YouTube Red?,etc.

So my rec is a curated, personalized GC experience - Visa card with no fees - with Recs for all of the above, tailored to her tastes. I would probably do it on the computer like an info graphic - and do “top three” lists. You could choose a handful of topics for this week, then do it again another week and it would feel like a continuation and very personal.

[mommyatty]

Books! All the books! A Kindle card if she has a Kindle. Or an Amazon card so she can pick her own regular books.

[saraml13]

Adult coloring book and colored pencils

[sandandsea]

Thank you for all of the suggestions! I sent chocolate covered strawberries, the paperback version of the girl on the train, fuzzy socks with grips, adult coloring book with pencils, chap stick, and a book that takes its time (looked interesting). Hopefully she likes it and it’s at least distracting.

[freezorburn]

I know I’m late to the party, but I once sent a digital picture frame to a friend in the hospital, with photos of people and places she loved. She was very sick and not able to do much, and could only handle limited numbers of visitors before pain/fatigue took over. Later on a mutual friend told me that it really helped the ICU nurses get a sense of who she was as a person.