Like many young girls her age, Kamryn Lambert was particular about her clothes. She liked bright colors and nice fabrics, and they had to be stylish.
Whenever she went to the hospital for treatment of leukemia, Kamryn took along her latest favorite outfit, and wore it in the hallways, much to the amusement of the nurses and doctors.
"It endeared her to them," said Kamryn's grandmother, Debi Katzenberger, who yesterday recalled the horror with which the 9-year-old girl greeted the drab hospital gowns the children were provided. "She was a little princess. From Day One, she told us to go home and get her own pajamas, because she wasn't going to wear what they gave her - they itched and they were boring."
When Kamryn died in September, her parents, Chris and Danielle Lambert of Pasadena, and the rest of the family were faced with deciding how to honor her memory. Katzenberger recalled a conversation with her son-in-law in which he said that what hurt him most was that people would never know who his daughter was.
Now they will.
Taking as a cue Kamryn's fondness for proper pajamas - her favorite were the bunny jammies and bunny slippers she'd gotten along with a real rabbit, which she named Bunny - Katzenberger came up with the idea of giving pajamas, robes and slippers on a regular basis to other kids at the University of Maryland Hospital for Children, where Kamryn had been treated. The family also set up a scholarship in her name for nursing students, and the first was awarded in May.
Yesterday, during one of the monthly giveaways of pajamas in the hospital's pediatric unit, a social worker, Erin Garner, pulled along a red Radio Flyer wagon laden with vivid nighttime outfits, each one labeled with a child's name, for delivery.
"It makes the kids happier," Garner said. "This gives them back a bit of their own personality. It's a very special treat - not just another boring day at the hospital."
Garner noted also that traditional hospital gowns, with their openings in the back, "don't always give the kids their privacy," something that is especially important for teenagers, she said. The new pajamas handed out under Katzenberger's initiative - which recently joined forces with the Casey Cares Foundation - all have buttons down the front so that doctors and nurses can have easy access to examine their chests.
