It's downright palatial!

We visited the New Children's Hospital this week to meet the spine specialist that will be part of the team of doctors to operate on Skyler in November. The hospital has just moved to it's new facility that is all brand spanking new, joining the University of Colorado hospital and research center. Later, some other facilities will also be relocating to join these two.

This is the former site of the Fitzimmons Army hospital that has slowly been phased out of existence over the years. There is a VA hospital that has since been built on another location, but Fitzimmons was an entire base. So they have a lot of space to use, and use it they are!

We checked in at the front desk to find out where our doctor was located, and received our "frequent flyer" id cards instead of a visitor badge. We get ID's that look like the rest of the staff, that tells me we spend just a bit too much time at the hospital, don't you think?



Then a volunteer takes us to the right area to make sure we don't get lost. I would have preferred a map, but we were early so it didn't matter that we followed the slow paced gal who was just giddy about being able to help us all.

But I don't want to give the impression that it is a chore to get around, it really is a great place. Just new with some kinks to work out.

The good things about this place are many, starting with the parking lot. The old place had a parking structure that was horrendous! Way too few spots, narrow, a complete pain in the butt. This is vast, lots of room, and a ton of handicapped spaces all lined up under cover. How cool is that?

When you get to your floor, you check in at a desk and they hand you a pager like you get at a restaurant. This is to further protect patient confidentiality, but I don't know what was wrong with just coming to the waiting room and asking for Skyler. But it works OK when you are wandering around gapping at all the new stuff!

Each of the rooms is single, and has (get this) a 25" flat panel plasma TV! There are pull out bed facilities for the parents to sleep in, which will come in handy because Skyler will probably be there about 2 weeks. In the old place the parents "slept" in a chair.

The lobby has a Peaberry's Coffee in it, and an ice cream bar... Mmmmmm.

This is a beautiful place and we are lucky to have a world class facility to have Skyler in when he has his surgery. For more cool factoids, visit these sites:

Main site
about hosital