More letters!

Your site is humbling and inspiring.  I can see exactly why you're getting the feedback you are.  I'm a firm believer in using the Web to reach communities, but when a community (the disabled) comes to you, I think you serve that community.

Just a quick note to say "thanks" for the awesome site!!  I can hardly wait to share it with one of my students who will be going into the hospital soon for some major surgery.  I'll also pass it along to his team at school... I think it will benefit everyone!  I love the easy layout and the cheerful colors!!!  I'll look forward to checking back into the site soon.

Your site is an inspiration, and I hope to enlighten many online readers to its existence. I have found so little in the way of good, personal information like this. Everything is so technical, and uses medical terminology...which is not what the average parent wants to hear, especially if their child's condition is newly diagnosed. It is fabulous to be able to offer them your research, which lets them see it from the perspective of the most important person of all: The Child!

This is truly a wonderful place on the net. I would hope that some hospitals will make it available to their patients, both large and small. You are to be commended for an outstanding job.

I was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis (JRA) when I was twelve years old and since that time my life has been a difficult journey.  There is much ignorance in this world and I am happy to know that someone cares enough to do something about it.

I really liked your web site.   I am 14 years old and am really interested in chronic illnesses in children and the stories I read made me want to be a help to kids when I'm an adult…in a few years.

I really love your site. It is awsome...I think it would be helpful to many of our colleages around the world. Thanks!

I find spending a few minutes visiting Band Aides & Blackboards is like a walk in some sunshine. I come back over and over and over...

 I found your site while I was surfing the net to help me find info on pain management for children.  Your site is Wonderful. It's great to find a site that has all of the concerns and thought about such serious problems, all in one site.

I am so happy to have found this site!  Thank you Thank you Thank you...I will print off & share this website address with our school board & school.

I love your internet site!!!  I could spend hours reading the articles and stories...I tell other students about the stories and recommend they visit your site.  Thank you for the inspiration and education!

My son went to the hospital for a "minor" operation, and the next day asked to find hospital stuff on the Internet.  We found your virtual tour and loved it!  Thanks a lot for this fun and educational experience.

Your site is fantastic!  I am going to recommend it to so many people, it is truly wonderful. Thanks.

I am writing you this note to tell you how much I value your website. I have been moved to tears on several areas, have copied others to give to doctors and nurses to increase their sensitivity to children's perceptions of the whole sickness experience. I am recommending your site to other nurses.  It is wonderful.  You are to be commended.

I have to tell you that as a nurse for 23 years, I was incredibly moved by the web sites you created. I found myself writing to children to tell them how proud I was of them for their bravery, and kindness in sharing with others.  Keep touching people with your wonderful web site.

Your site is wonderful. Thanks for the service you provide...one of the best providing a vehicle for communication about disabilities!!!

I just wanted to thank you for the great site.  It was the best site I have every seen.  I was there for more than 2 hours and I never visit a site that long. 

I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know that I am astounded by the work that you have put into "Band-aids and Blackboards". It is truly an amazing site and I hope you are very proud of the way you have touched so many young lives.

You must be a pretty incredible nurse to get all these kids to give their stories. I think its great. Reminds me of Patch Adams. Keep taking them down. and showing them you're listening....We are too.

I just found your site and I absolutely love it.  Thank you for taking the time to make this web site.

Well I must say that I am soooooo impressed!! I work with children who have physical as well as emotional issues and your site is amazing!! I think that you have a wonderful way of expressing things that the kids will understand and that they will relate to.  More importantly you have listened... truly listened to these kids- Keep up the wonderful work. Yours is a site that I will visit often.

Thank you for the informative web site.  I am a special education teacher in a middle school and I found your information up to date as well as realistic.  Continue to keep up the quality of this terrific web site. 

I spent a great deal of time at your site and thoroughly enjoyed my stay there. I appreciate the honesty with which the kids share their stories...

I really appreciate what you are doing with the children. It puts smiles on their faces. And you know when they smile, we smile.

I am very impressed with your website! It is big but well  designed and comprehensive. "BandAides & Blackboards" is definitely a place on the internet that should have many thousands of visitors each day. The topics are very much sought after. Parents are very hungry for information.

What a wonderful website you have created. The love you have for these children radiates through the words and images.

I just wanted to drop you a note to let you know what a wonderful time I had reading all of the stories. You have truly developed a gold mine for families, thank you!

It's sites like yours that truly do make the difference in the lives of children.  Your site is truly exceptional.

I just wanted to write a quick note and tell you that your web site is amazing and full of useful and fun info...so thank you.

This is something beautiful. Thank you.

Miss Eleven is having her first really serious asthma attack, and at the same time suffering the pains of oncoming puberty, fear of a new school and friend trouble...not to mention bullying! Like she said, "It's hard being a kid in the '90's!" This site washed up in our netsurf just in time. It's made us both laugh, think and talk about her problems, and been a great help, both practically, and as moral support.

A fantastic, nay funtastic site, my kids loved it and I enjoyed them roaming through it. I felt it allowed my children to learn a little and have fun, without realising the former I might add. I thought (on a professional note) the site was a sensitive and informative place, very child orientated and well laid out. As a parent, it offered information in digestible portions, and at a level that most would understand.  I've passed your site's address to my local school and quite a few of my professional colleagues, I'm impressed to say the least.

Can I congratulate you on your website?  I have read it with great interest and have found it very user-friendly. The ideas and illustrations are superb, from the monkey shaking his head to reinforce misconceptions about illness, the analogy of the deaf dalmations, to the pen pal putting children in touch. The value of this is not least to inspire anybody in contact with chronically ill children, be it teachers or health care professionals to address the difficulties faced by the children and their families. 

I have only spent just a few minutes in your web site thus far, but
already I am compelled to get down on my knees and thank God for loving and caring people like you who would put together such a web site.

I just visited your stunning site for the first time...What is so beautiful about your site is it is showing the children as people first (as they are to themselves).

Thanks for providing an outlet where I could tell my story.  I love your web site, and I think it really provides inspiration for people with and without medical problems. 

I really appreciate the energy, focus, and sense of deep respect that this site you've put together seems to radiate.

I'm writing to congratulate you on the fantastic site that you've developed to help children of all ages to understand and cope with medical ailments.  Being active in sports as a child and having developed asthma as an adolescent and having a close friend whose brother was deaf from birth, I wish that such a resource was available a years ago.  Many people owe you a great service.

I just found this site...I love it. I can't wait until I have the time to sit down and spend 3-4 hours reading everything.

Your site's concept is excellent, and fills an unfortunate gap; children today are the ones who will be using the internet tomorrow for most of their information-gathering and learning, yet as a group they are largely ignored. It's great to see a site that speaks directly to them.

I would just like to say this one of the coolest sites I've ever been to.  I have an illness so this means a lot to me.  Thank you.

I enjoyed your poem about leukemia tremendously.  I think it would make a valuable addition to any class education/ preparation for back to school package. While it does not overwhelm with information it gets the important message across that they are still the same inside. It is up- beat and happy while dealing with a difficult/ often ignored subject. Your website provides a very useful service to anyone seek information.

What an Extraordinary site.  I am an RN working Obstetrics and Pediatrics and teaching Pediatric clinical to Student Nurses.  This site has been a valuable learning tool to help me get students train of thought changed to accommodate a child's way of thinking and mostly feeling.

I love your website!! I came across it today, and I can't even remember how.  I love the whole concept--the title is great, the explanation of the title, the different sections...everything!

I've just visited your "frog pages" on the internet.  I thought they were great.  I didn't really realize the effect all the testing and treatments that one of my children has received on his brother until I read "A Note From Jeffrey" in your pages. It has helped me understand the changes in him over the last year.  Thanks so much, I'm headed to the library now to look for some of your sibling books you suggested.

I think that what you are doing is great.  I wish something like this had been available for me, when my 2 boys were growing up with the disease of Hirschsprung's. 

I have just finished visiting your site Band-Aids and Blackboards, what a fabulous site, what a wonderful contribution to our community!  Thank you!!

BRAVO, BRAVO AND BRAVO !!!!! I loved your web page !!! I am a homebound teacher and I work in department dedicated entirely to educating the kids that are too sick, well you know the rest. I spent an entire morning (we aren't too busy right now thank God) reading the stories that you have collected. I loved every minute of it and plan to use this as a resource for my students. As many of the children stated in their  writings some of their conditions are rare and it would be good for them to read about and contact others with similar diseases. Thank you for taking the time to develop this very valuable resource! 

Just writing to say how much I enjoyed the Dolphin meditation. I read it to a group of young people with Autistic Spectrum
Disorders  who responded very positively. I use Relaxation and Meditation with this group very sucessfully and it is wonderful to be able to connect with people of a like mind.  I work in Nottingham England in a school for young people most of whom have A.S.D. Thanks for sharing the story.

Your site has helped me professionally and personally. I am a doctor and the teen poetry gave me an immense insight into how to relate to anyone with a terminal or debilitating illness. My own elderly mother has been quite ill recently - now recovering and this experience disturbed me quite a lot. Visiting your site was of indescribable comfort and the inspiration of your strong yet fragile, spiritual yet human contributors and their philosophies and fears was so very welcome. I shall be visiting again.

I made my way to your excellent site from Yahoo's 'cool links' page in a rare moment of just surfing the Web. Thank you for immediately transforming me out of my self-absorbed world into a place of caring, giving, and love. I forwarded the 'open letter to all doctors' to a neonatologist friend of mine in the hopes of infecting others with your contagious site.

What makes your site so enjoyable (if that is the correct word), is the fact that you have collected so many first person stories.  Unlike so many sites on the Web  that provide links to other sites (which then link back to that site) and provide no "useful" stuff, Band-Aides is unique in that you have taken the time to put together pertinent information for children, parents and teachers.

During lunch, I discovered your Web site, and must tell you that I think it is one of the best I have seen!  Outstanding work!!! 

I really really love "Bandaids and Blackboards"! What a wonderful website you have created!! It will definitely go on my bookmarks list and I will refer people to it frequently!!!!...Congratulations on your attractive, informative and creative site!

Many years ago - 15 - 20 years ago, as a parent of a chronically ill
child I looked for anything on children living with a chronic illness.  There was nothing to read, either for an adult or a child.  There was no internet and not much on paper, if anything.  Hats off to you for the great resource that you have put together on your site.  I landed upon it through "Cool links".  I wish this had been available to our family years ago. A bouquet of roses to you - unfortunately just virtual roses - but the message is still behind them.

I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how much I am enjoying your web site.  I have been on it for approx. 3 hours and have not been able to go back to work.  As a 29 year old woman who had Nephrotic Syndrome as a child 22 years ago I have never had the healing opportunity to listen to others who had the same feelings and emotions of being a sick child in and out of the hospital.

I'm a pediatrician and I'm teaching at a Medical School in Campinas City- State SP- Brasil. I like very the information in your site, because I have had difficulty in Brasil in learning of research about this theme. There are no clinical professionals writing about chronic illness.

I love this site. It is filled with so much information for children of every age. Thank you for compiling this information in such a nice way.

Outstanding website-obvious countless hours of heart and soul poured into it. I'm very impressed. Keep up the great work! 

I write health material for children and I am amazed at what you've been able to accomplish. Best site on the web! 

I visited your site tonight and found it to be wonderful, especially
the kids' tips for nurses!  They do make perfect sense from a child's point of view.

Want to read some more letters? Seven more pages...


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Joan Fleitas, Ed.D., R.N.
 Associate Professor of Nursing, Lehman College, CUNY
 Bronx, New York 10468

  Last updated: January 29, 2009