Pros/benefits of having CCHS

1.  You never have to wait when you go to the ER.
2.  You get handicapped parking because of all of the equipment you have to lug around.
3.  Even the parking attendents at the hospital know who you are.
4.  You have a whole team of doctors and specialists.
5.  You are on the emergency power list and actually get a real person when you call to          report a power outage.  Our neighbors love us.
6.  You are on the emergency list with the fire department.
7.  You never get lost at the hospital because you know where the home vent clinic is located, where to go for speech therapy, where the xray lab is located, where to find one day surgery, you know which floor and where the sleep study lab is located, the cafeteria is one of your favorite places, you know which floor to find pulmonary and the respiratory therapists.  You can even help people who are lost because you also usually know where they are going.
8.  You have a free pass to sleep during the day because you were up all night with the endless alarms.
9.  You do not panic in an emergency.
10.  When your child says a cuss word you can pretend that you don't know what he is saying because his speech is not clear sometimes. 
11.  You have friends all over the world and met them through special needs facebook pages.
12.  You get preferential treatment at Disney World.
13.  When you have to call the doctor, there is no wait.  They return your call immediately.
14.  If you are having a bad day people assume it is because of the beeping alarms keeping you up at night.  You can blame everything on the ventilator.
15.  You always have plenty of medical equipment with you in case of an emergency (gauze, plastic tubing, alcohol swabs, latex gloves and an ambu bag to resuscitate someone.
16.  In the event of an emergency (tornado, earthquake, blizzard, etc) or invasion by a foreign country you have plenty of sterile water bags stored at your house. 
17.  People think you are so smart because you know all kinds of medical terms (vent, trach, circuit, low min vol, peep, ST, OT, PT, vital stim, sats, pulseox, Shiley, Bivona, HME, Passey-Muir, etc).
18.  You are never bored because your calendar is filled with appointments.
19.  You are an expert on breathing issues, feeding issues, swallowing issues, gastrointestinal issues, speech issues, etc. 
20. You never have to buy moving boxes again because you get so many every month with your ventilator/trach supplies.