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'Body Parts' Game Show Brings Fun to Kids at Lurie Children's Hospital

By Kyla Gardner | November 17, 2014 5:13am
Watch 'Body Parts' with Extra Technician Tracey
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DNAinfo/Kyla Gardner

STREETERVILLE — Every Monday, sick kids at Lurie Children's Hospital get the chance to compete on a live game show — right from their hospital beds.

"Body Parts," a game similar to bingo, has been hosted by children's entertainer Tracey Ellert for the last 15 years. Through the hospital's intrahospital TV network, Skylight TV, kids not feeling up to the task of joining the studio audience on the hospital's 12th floor can play along from their rooms.

"What they experience during my show ... is usually a moment of fun and a break from what they’re going through, so they can just feel like they’re in a normal space, not really in the hospital," Ellert said.

 Children's entertainer Tracey Ellert hosts a live game show called "Body Parts" for patients at Lurie Children's Hospital in Streeterville.
Children's entertainer Tracey Ellert hosts a live game show called "Body Parts" for patients at Lurie Children's Hospital in Streeterville.
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DNAinfo/Kyla Gardner

Kyla Gardner says she witnessed the kids' changing moods during the show:

As her character "Extra Technician Tracey," Ellert pulls bingo balls and announces body parts like "brain" or "gallbladder," the kids mark them off on their cards and then call in or shout out with a winner. Ellert goofs off for her audience, mistaking the scapula muscle for a spatula, for instance, but she also explains — on a kid's level — what each body part does.

For children who are learning about their bodies by way of being in the hospital, "Body Parts" spins that knowledge into something positive, said Nicole Loughran, the coordinator for the Family Life Center, where the game show is filmed.

"This helps them identify different things that maybe they don’t understand, and it makes it into fun entertainment so it's less scary," she said.

Ellert, who lives in Uptown, realized she had a gift for working with children while studying improv at iO Chicago Theater and often ending up the de facto entertainer at birthday parties for friends' kids.

Fifteen years later, with Nick Jr. TV shows, regular storytelling appearances, and a DVD under her belt, Ellert still manages to keep up with bouncy toddlers.

"You have to out-energize children, which is really difficult," Ellert said. "So for 45 minutes, I have to completely go from zero to 60 really fast and keep them engaged for that time."

Those who work with Ellert — volunteers help her keep track of which Barbies, monster trucks, or blankets need to be brought to which rooms — say she's got a knack for it.

"She brings everybody into it. She makes every child feel important," said volunteer Joyce Schmit, who has worked with Ellert on "Body Parts" for 14 years. "She brings shy children out; she takes the ones who are already fun and has fun with them."

Ten-year-old Veleria Collazo was at Lurie to have her appendix removed, and had been in the hospital about a week when "Body Parts" day arrived.

Shy at first, she declined to talk or be filmed for this article before "Body Parts" began. By the time the game was half over, Collazo beamed and asked to show off her Polly Pocket playset prize and talk about her experience for the record.

"This is my first time" she said. "I knew most of" the body parts.

Ellert wants to reach as many patients, siblings and parents at Lurie as she can. About eight years ago, she began performing the show in Spanish and English.

"It's really amazing to be able to connect with a whole other community in the hospital that maybe I wouldn't have been able to before," Ellert said.

Native Spanish speaker Laura Rebulda was able to participate with her 11-year-old son Sergio.

"This is a good experience for the kids in the hospital, because sometimes the kids in the hospital are sad, and the parents are sad for the kids," she said. "It's important that here there are role-plays for the kids, because you forget that he is sick, or he forgets the pain."

Twenty winners are able to take home the flashiest prizes each game, but consolation stuffed animals are available for anyone who participates.

After the show ended about 4 p.m. one recent afternoon, Lorena Alarcon arrived at the Family Life Center to collect a consolation prize for her 5-year-old son Jamie, who was at the hospital with treatable, but painful, Kawasaki disease.

Though Jamie's room was full of toys, Alarcon said he suffered boredom, and "Body Parts" and Extra Technician Tracey engaged him in a way nothing else had.

"He was laughing every time she was making a joke," she said. "He was like, 'Oh, that lady’s crazy,' and I go 'Yeah, I know, right?'"

For Ellert, that kind of crazy is the right kind.

"I like making people laugh in general, but with children, it's even better," she said. "The pure joy of them laughing, it’s like the cleanest drug."

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