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.