Meeting Dr. Scholl and about Joe Dimaggio Children's Hospital

Joe and I got to meet Jamie's cardiac surgeon yesterday (10/28/11) over at JDCH. I also got to meet Julissa, who I have been on the phone with quite a few times already (she's the nurse practitioner for Dr. Scholl). It was nice to put a face to a voice. :)
Maryann (my mother-in-law) has been driving me around on Fridays for my various appointments, since she has that day off. We went for my biophysical and non-stress test over at Memorial Hospital, then hit Dr. Siudmak's for my regular appointment, then met Joe for lunch. We came up with some questions for the surgeon, then headed over to the children's hospital for the meeting. Dr. Scholl was a very nice man, and didn't make us feel rushed or bad about asking any of the questions we had. The people in the Pediatric Heart Station were all very nice, very kind.
After we had the meeting, Julissa gave us a tour of the PICU (pediatric intensive care unit). It is split into two areas, one side was all cardiac patients, the other side for other issues. It was really hard to go through there, and see all those kids hooked up to those machines. There were a lot of cribs, with a lot of babies. I was barely able to hold my tears back until we got out of there and on our way back down to the truck. The nurses we met on that floor were also very kind, and it seemed as if the staff and the overall hospital does everything they can to keep the parents together with the kids, and also make it an environment where siblings can come and be comfortable too.
They have a building called the Conine Clubhouse (named for Florida Marlin Jeff Conine) where parents can stay overnight to be close to their kids. It's right next door to the hospital, and it's free of charge. I guess you can arrange to stay for blocks of a week or so, but they do their best to make sure there is always somewhere for parents to be close by.
Joe's new job with Heico (Jet Avion) is about 3-5 minutes from the hospital too, which is great. I have a feeling we are going to be putting some serious time in over there.