ICU -- Into The Bardo

For an infant or young child in the intensive care unit, everything is unrooted and strange.  Much of it is completely perplexing and painful.  While our intentions are good, I know we must seem like demons or sadists come to torment.  All of the slender threads of normality and connection with those precious daily routines are severed.  Some of my patients who have been very sick and hospitalized as young children appear to have rebounded fully while others are marked for life.  We’ve learned how not to blind children with excess oxygen and we can operate on a baby in utero but we are only just beginning to understand that we also need to heal the wounded spirit.  

 Materials: Recycled surplus medical tubing, needles and netting.  Purchased tank and humidfier. Discarded toy (Santa Cruz Flea Market)