The Gift of Life

Today, I helped make little goodie bags that are going to be stocking stuffers for the little kids. I can’t believe Christmas is right around the corner! It is an exciting time of the year, and the kids seem very excited about the upcoming holiday events that the hospital has planned for them. Many of these kids will be spending Christmas at the hospital, so we are trying to bring the Christmas spirit to them.

As I was carrying the goodie bags around to distribute at the different departments, I happened to walk past the hospital blood bank. It just made me really happy to see so many wonderful people in the waiting room, willing to give their time and effort in order to give the gift of life. I, myself, am a regular blood donor, and I believe it is a great cause. Moreover, the unfortunate, and yet, fortunate, experiences that my family and I have encountered during this past year concerning my dad’s health, has only reaffirmed for me how important it is to be involved in these donation programs.

About 6 months ago, my father experienced liver failure, and was hospitalized in the intensive care unit. Exactly a week later, the doctors told my family and me to “prepare ourselves,” for the worse to happen. They didn’t think that he was going to make it past the weekend. In the end, when doctors had exhausted all means possible in order to save my dad’s life, it was the kindness of a complete stranger that enabled my dad to have a second chance at life, and blessed me with the opportunity to spend more years with him. My dad’s new liver was came from a car accident patient who had passed away. We have yet to find out more about my dad’s donor, but I thank him/her every single day for their gift, which has brought an indescribable amount of joy to my family.

Happiness

I talked with an 8-yr old cancer patient today. It was amazing how much energy he had. We went to the playroom and spent the entire afternoon putting together Lego pieces to build our own racecars. He was quite the engineer! I asked him how things were going and how long he had been in the hospital. He replied that it was his second month, and that his treatment was going well. His parents were very happy, and that made him happy. To hear those words uttered by him made my heart melt. Throughout the entire afternoon, we joked, laughed, and just talked. I couldn’t believe how much life this little patient had in him! He was a little ball of energy! When I left, he gave me the longest hug, and asked about when he would see me next. He said I was the “best Lego builder ever,” which surprised me, considering my racecar was not built anywhere near as elaborately as his was. Today, I learned something valuable from my little friend. He taught me that it was possible to still be optimistic and happy, even when life doesn’t turn out quite as you planned it. Times can get tough, and life can be difficult, but as the saying goes, “When life hands you lemons, squeeze some lemonade.” He taught me that happiness can be found anywhere, even in places that you would least expect to find it, such as the cancer center.

Hope

For the first half of the day today, I folded bed sheets, pillow cases, and blankets to stock into the closets of each hospital room on the children’s floor. It was a good and relaxing time, and I was able to talk with the nurses and get to know some of them better. For the second half of the day, I walked around to the different patient rooms to see if anyone wanted company. I had the chance to talk with a 12 years old patient, who was in the hospital with a rare condition that was affecting her eyesight. Doctors were trying out various treatment plans for her, but thus far, there has not been any luck. However, after talking to her mom and her, I realized they both had something in them that, in my opinion, is as important as finding a successful treatment; they both still had great hope.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said: "If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.” Indeed, I have seen many heartbreaking stories during my volunteering experience, but in every successful case, I believe that having hope was key to a patient’s recovery. Granted, not every day is a good day in the hospital, and not every patient will receive good news. A patient may even receive weeks after weeks of bad news. However, having hope keeps a patient from giving up, which leads to better psychological health, and eventually better physical health.

Suffering

Today was just a normal day. I spent some time with a 5 year old patient recovering from heart surgery. He has had 28 surgeries since his birth: some minor, some major, all of which were needed in order to fix his heart problems and his cleft foot, in hopes of enabling him to walk correctly. I was amazed to see his quick recovery – amazed at how resilient human beings are to external stressors. I was ecstatic to see him doing so well, and awed by how he could possibly be in such good spirits after all that he had gone through in his short 5 years of life. How could someone who had suffered so much, still remain so happy?

I soon learned a fact of life that I had never realized before: suffering is inevitable. You don’t even have to be working in a hospital ER or a cancer center to notice this. Suffering is all around us; it is a part of life. However, I realized what is important is that it is up to each and every one of us to do our part in helping to alleviate the suffering in this world. We need to do our share in helping others who need it; in spreading love in this world.