Click on one of the objects below:
- Thermometer
- Plasters
- Jab or injection
- Spatula
- Stethoscope
- Blood Pressure Meter
- Drip
- Cast and dressing
- Reflex hammer
- A wee or a poo
- Scale
- Measure
- Medicine
Thermometer
You’ve probably seen this, because your Mum also uses this when you have a fever. A thermometer measures your body temperature. Your temperature is shown by degrees centigrade. If you have more than 37.5 degrees, then you have a fever.
Plasters
You will sometimes be made to wear bandages which can be really neat. You need these plasters to cover a wound (like when you’ve tripped and hurt yourself) or when you bleed a little or, why not, just because they are pretty.
Jab or injection
An injection feels like you’ve been pricked by a needle and it hurts a little. But this jab helps you get better. Injections can be given all over your body: in your leg, your arm, your back, or your bottom.
Spatula
A spatula is a small, flat, wooden stick. It resembles an ice cream stick. The doctor uses it to look into your throat.
- Say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! he will then tell you.
Stethoscope
The doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to your heart, your lungs and your tummy. He sticks one end in his ears and moves the round piece along your breast or back.
- Brrrrrrrr ... this can feel a little cold. The doctor will then tell you to – breathe in deeply … breathe out…and again …
Blood Pressure Meter
The blood in your body flows through thin tubes, called veins. You can measure the speed at which your blood travels through your veins with a blood pressure meter. To do this, the doctor places a strap just above your elbow. The strap has a rubber orb attached to it. By pumping this, the strap will be filled with air and feel tight around your arm. The doctor then releases the air from the strap, just like a balloon: phewwwwwwwwwwww…
Drip
A drip is a sack filled with liquid. This liquid drips through a tube into your arm. Children will often be given a drip just after an operation. This contains fluids, medicine or blood. The sack hangs upside down on a kind of hanger.
This hanger has wheels, so that now and then take you can a walk down the hallway. This makes for a pretty threesome: you, the nurse or your mum and the drip.
Cast and dressing
There are many different kinds and sizes of dressings.
If you’ve broken your arm or leg, it will immediately be wrapped up in a cast. Some children have to lie down on their back for up to six weeks with their leg pulled up. Sometimes your leg is tied to a weight, to make it easier to keep your leg in the air. When you’ve lain still on your back for six weeks, it will feel like you have to learn how to walk again. You will then need to see a physiotherapist, who will show you how.
Reflex hammer
The doctor uses a reflex hammer to check how speedy your body’s reactions are. He gently hits you with this hammer, for example right below the knee. Your leg will then kick upwards, just like that.
A wee or a poo
If you have to wee or to poo, you go to the toilet. When you’re in hospital this may not be possible if you have to stay in your bed. In this case, boys have a big advantage. They can use a urinal. This is a kind of bottle with a long, broad neck. But if boys have to poo, they are given a bed pan just like girls. This is a kind of pan which the nurse slides under your bottom. You may find it quite embarrassing when you are lying there naked and can hear your wee splashing in the bed pan. But you will soon get used to this. All children sometimes have to wee, poo, fart, and burp, throw up or cry.
Scale
You probably have a scale at home? But the one in hospital almost certainly looks different. This is because they want to know exactly how much you weigh.
- How much do you weigh?
Measure
At home you tend to use a ribbon meter or something similar, to measure your height. At the hospital, you have to stand as straight as you can against a rod. The nurse can then read your exact height from the sliding rod above your head.
- How tall are you?
Medicine
At the hospital you will receive treatment and medicine to get better. This could be many things:
- An injection,
- drops,
- a suppository,
- pills,
- ointment,
- something to breathe in,
- syrup.
Some medicine tastes horrible or smells strange. Others you can swallow without tasting anything.