How To Pass Time In Hospital - Part 2

Games are used as a tool to distract and amuse the patient, by a 10 year old!

This is a follow up article to our first visit when Gwen had lots of work done on her left foot including three nice green pins inserted into her toes! On this occasion her right foot was the target of the surgeon’s knife!

On this occasion things went less to plan (as they are wont to do when spending time in hospital) and so even we couldn’t resist the siren call of the TV and succumbed to the delights of watching England play the first half of their world cup game against Scotland before she was taken off into the operating theatre. I watched the second half alone but the theatre sister kept Gwen appraised of the score whilst they were waiting for the “block” (local anaesthetic) to take effect on her leg.

Once I had recovered from the stress of England’s performance on the rugby pitch and Gwen had recovered from the sedation we felt up to playing a couple of games that were not too “taxing”. On this occasion we started with two games of Archaeology (possibly one of the smallest and lightest games we have). This is an interesting card game that deserves more use, although it is let down in my view by the somewhat bland artwork. True to form Gwen won the first game but I did manage to recover and win the second.

How to Pass The Time In Hospital – Part 1

A quick recovery, an unexpected delay and 5 games!

My long suffering and increasingly active game playing wife had to have an operation on her left foot last Saturday resulting in lots of holes, stitches, bruising and, very unpleasantly for her VERY squeamish husband, 3 pins sticking out the end of her toes! On the upside for me she cannot get out so I have a willing captive with whom to play games.

The operation went well and by 2pm Gwen was: fed and watered, expert with the crutches, dressed and waiting for the surgeon to visit and give her the all clear to go home. Frustratingly, he finally arrived well after 6pm meaning we had four hours to kill in a hospital room; thankfully I had thrown two games in the back of the car for just such an eventuality.

We started with San Juan (a gift from Tim on my trip to STABCON last summer - thanks again Tim). This is a simple and relatively fast card game where players seek to build up the optimal set of plantations, commercial and monumental buildings. More importantly it can just about fit onto one of those wheelie tables found at the side of hospital beds.

I had hoped that as well as fixing her foot the medical staff might have injected her with some magical ‘losing serum’ (regular readers will know that Gwen wins most of the games we play together), sadly this was not the case she beat me – strike one to Gwen!