Here’s to the Pediatrics Wing of Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital

I’m a Santa Barbara superfan. And after my son’s emergency appendectomy over Fourth of July weekend, I’m a Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital superfan.

I lived in Santa Barbara during college, then left for a bigger city. I moved back to town in my mid-twenties, then left once again. But the pull to the land of 72-degree January beach days, Spanish tile roofs, and Backyard Bowls was so strong I moved my husband and kids back to Goleta last September in time for our older child to start transitional kindergarten.

Since then, I’ve written about how my third stint here is my favorite stint. I feel at home in Santa Barbara for all the usual reasons: the very real necessity of keeping a swimsuit and towel in the car at all times, the absence of wrestling mittens and hats onto my kids in the winter, the June gloom that prevents summer from getting too hot, the zoo with a view…. I could go on, but I’ll spare you a list that anyone reading this already knows and anyone else would see by Googling, “What’s so great about Santa Barbara?”

The day after we attended a Fourth of July block party, my son started complaining of a stomachache. We gave him some ginger ale, and then, like any good Goleta parents, took him and his little sister swimming at Swell. He perked up enough to dive for sinkies and eat chicken tenders. But the next morning, when he was still in pain and refusing to eat, we took him to Cottage Urgent Care on Calle Real, which gets a shout-out for suspecting appendicitis and sending us straight to the ER.

Pulling up to the hospital on Pueblo, my husband said, “Wow, this hospital is almost as beautiful as the airport.” In what other town do you hear that? 

My son, who is 5, was in pain but smiling widely as he sat in the hospital bed waiting for an ultrasound. Our first ER nurse gave him a bag filled with Star Wars goodies, then turned and gave my daughter a pink lovey and some attention, which she had been craving. Our second ER nurse was a surfer whom I knew vaguely from UCSB, a kind man who brought my daughter applesauce and my son some hospital-grade Band-Aids, in case he wanted to go swimming slightly sooner than recommended after his impending appendectomy.

That night, after a scan confirmed appendicitis, a surgical nurse wheeled my son up to meet the anesthesiologist and the pediatric surgeon. My son cried, alligator tears rolling down his cheeks as he wailed, “I’m scared!” My daughter placed her new pink lovey on her brother’s leg and said, “I hope this makes you feel better.” My husband and I turned our backs, hiding our own tears, then kissed him as he rolled away.

While we waited, we went to the hospital lobby, which is bright and beautiful and sells stuffed unicorns. We took our daughter’s new purple stuffed unicorn and yummier-than-expected salads up to the surgery waiting room and played bingo, and within an hour, the surgery was complete and my son was awake. He lapped up a cherry popsicle like it was water in a desert, and then we wheeled him down a long hallway — a hallway full of paintings and sculptures that’s prettier than any hospital hallway has the right to be — to pediatrics, where he would spend the next five days. 

I’m one of those moms who sometimes fantasizes about getting a minor illness that forces her to stay in the hospital for a few days, drinking smoothies and watching TV in bed while someone takes care of me and someone else takes care of my children. I know, of course, that my son doesn’t share that fantasy and that he was confused, in pain, and would much rather be home (or, preferably, with his kindergarten friends at the little cove between Goleta Beach and UCSB, running from the waves). But as I looked around his hospital room, with a view of palm trees, a fountain and the Spanish tile roof on the other side of the hospital, I thought: If he has to be in the hospital, this is the place to be. And if a parent — Dad, in this case, because our daughter insisted that Mom be home with her — has to sleep in a window seat in a hospital room, this is the window seat to sleep on.

If you ask my son about his least favorite part of being in the hospital, he would say: the pain when they ripped off the tape that was holding his IV. If you asked him about his favorite part of being in the hospital, he would say: nothing. But when pressed, he would say: air hockey.

My son’s room was the best one in pediatrics because it was next door to a recreation room. On his first full day, a child life specialist sat on the foot of my son’s bed and used doctor toys to explain his appendectomy and his recovery, using words a 5-year-old could understand. I was grateful, because the best I could come up with was, “The doctor cut open your stomach and cut out a thing that was making you feel sick,” a description I think made him feel sicker. Then she told him about the two playrooms in pediatrics: one with an array of toys, and the other with a lot of things including, most importantly, air hockey. She explained that to get out of the hospital, he had to show the doctor that he could eat, drink, and walk around. 

That first day, my son wouldn’t budge. But then the nurse reminded him of the air hockey table next door, and my husband reminded him of playing on a similar one at Bowlero. We all sighed with relief when my son swung his legs to the side of his bed, grabbed his dad’s hand, and shuffled next door while I wheeled his IV fluids. 

By the fourth day, he didn’t even ask for help getting out of the hospital bed. He’d stand up himself, grab the IV fluid machine, and wheel it over to one of the two playrooms, or to the gorgeous third-floor patio. He ordered himself chocolate milkshakes and pepperoni pizzas and sat in the hospital recliner, coloring Spider-Man and PAW Patrol pages. 

Before my son was discharged on day five, we took a final walk to the playroom. We said hi to the guitar players who play music for the kids every Thursday, and they broke into a rendition of “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.” We saw the nurse who was with us our first day on the wing, who cheered at his progress. I asked my son if he was sad to go home. “Definitely not,” he said.

But two days later, when I showed him the hospital memory box I had made, with his admission bracelet, stuffed bear from the child life specialist, coloring books he had completed, and a few other mementos, he said, “Hold on, Mom!” He rushed over to his dresser, grabbed the kid-sized hospital gown we had brought home, and put it in the box: “I want to remember how cozy this was.” I put the box in his closet and spent the next 45 minutes trying to convince him to take his antibiotics, finally bribing him with a new toy. If only I had a nurse with me, I thought. 

Of all the reasons to spend five days in the pediatric wing of a hospital, an appendectomy is a great one. We’re lucky to have a healthy boy, minus one appendix, and his healthy sister home now. We’re also lucky our kid’s hospital stay just happened to be at Santa Barbara Cottage.