Dressed as a boxer, complete with a fake black eye, 11-year-old Makenzie Sacca watched as Pun the Magician performed a floppy wand trick and told Harry Potter jokes.
The magic show was one of many activities offered for patients during the Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA’s Halloween festivities on Friday.
Sacca is an outpatient at the hospital, where she receives daily radiation treatment for a tumor in the pituitary gland area.
After an MRI in July found a large tumor with multiple cysts growing off it, Sacca, who lives in Las Vegas, was diagnosed with craniopharyngioma and checked into the Mattel hospital on Sept. 3. Doctors at Mattel were able to remove the majority of the tumor through surgery, and she was discharged on Sept. 18.
However, Sacca and her family will not be able to go home until her last radiation session on Nov. 13.
During the hospital’s Halloween parade, the children were also joined by dogs wearing an assortment of costumes from the UCLA People-Animal Connection, an organization within the medical center that gives patients the opportunity to interact with specially trained dogs.
“Kids love when dogs dress up,” said Jack Barron, director of the UCLA People-Animal Connection. “Basically, the dogs are a distraction, a positive distraction. (The kids) forget for a moment why they’re in the hospital ““ they forget the pain they feel physically when they’re with the dogs.”
Sacca was one of many children who participated in the hospital’s Halloween event, which included a costume parade where patients and their families went trick-or-treating through the halls of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. Child-made artwork plastered on the walls marked the parade route.
She came to the event to see the familiar faces of the nurses, doctors and children in Mattel, said Makenzie’s mother, Susan Sacca.
Makenzie Sacca said she was most excited to see the different people at the hospital.
The kids and their families were not the only ones who participated in the Halloween festivities. Doctors donning cat ears, nurses wearing witch hats and staff sporting candy outfits passed out treats to the children as they paraded through the hospital. Staff from all different parts of the medical center partake in the activities, said Amy Bullock, director of Child Life/Child Development services.
During the trick-or-treat route through the hospital, firefighters from the UCLA Fire Department passed out treats and candy to the kids as well.
“The kids and staff love it. It’s one of the few opportunities that the patients have to feel like kids and to play. And their parents jump right in,” Bullock said.
The event, which is put on by Child Life/Child Development Services, began more than 20 years ago. It usually involves face painting, arts and crafts, a magic show and a costume parade, greatly aided by the Spirit Halloween Superstore’s donation of costumes, Bullock said.
The Child Life/Child Development Services is a constituent of the medical center that provides support and relief for the children beyond the treatments and diagnoses they receive at the hospital.
The organization aims to provide coping techniques for children as well as to help them understand the medical procedures they may face, according to the Child Life/Child Development Services policy statement.
Mark Maxwell-Smith, also known to his audiences as Pun, has been performing his magic shows both in front of a crowd of children as well as talking to the kids one-on-one for the past 25 years through Child Life/Child Development Services.
“The kind of payment I get for doing magic cannot be put on a pay check,” Maxwell-Smith said. “This is not a dollars and cents thing, it’s something more. When (the kids) come out, I smile bigger.”
Maxwell-Smith said he champions the nurses, doctors, Child Life/Child Development Services specialists, social workers, children and parents who are all a part of both the Halloween celebration and the everyday life of the children’s hospital.
“I can see the faces of heroes who are trying to improve (the kids’) daily lives. And if I’m allowed to be a part of that process, if I can divert attention from the frustration and pain, then I’m honored,” Maxwell-Smith said.