"Room for Christ"

One of my favorite passages from our Dorothy Day readings was on pg. 94. Dorothy Day writes: "It is no use saying that we are born two thousand years too late to give room to Christ. Nor will those who live at the end of the world have been born too late. Christ is always with us, always asking for room in our hearts."

I enjoyed this passage, because I felt that it reflected a lot of my feelings that I had throughout my service learning project. I saw Christ in those who were sick, those who were in despair, and those who had lost the desire to continue living. Even though I wasn't able to do much to help physically heal the patients, I do believe that I played a role in helping them heal emotionally. I was able to be there for the patients who reached out to me. By simply talking to them, listening to them talk about their worries and fears, and comforting them, I was able to be the extra friend that brought them a little bit of happiness through our interactions. These patients have taught me so much about love, hope, and optimism, and how to be genuinely content with life, despite the "not-so-great" things that might happen in our lives. Each and every one of the patients have truly touched my life, and I hope that I have been able to do the same for them.

Empathy

Today, I learned a valuable lesson of empathy. The patient that I spent time with was a 10 year old cancer patient who had been in the hospital for 6 months. After talking to her, I found out that she was the second child in the family who had been diagnosed with this form of cancer. Her older sister was not as lucky, and had passed away a year after she was diagnosed. I couldn’t believe the story that she was telling me. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what her parents must be going through. To lose a child is horrific. To have another child be diagnosed with the same form of cancer is every parent’s worse nightmare. This patient’s mom was in the room while I was visiting with her daughter, and as soon as her daughter fell asleep, I could see tears beginning to stream down her face. I sat down with the patient’s mom, and tried to comfort her. I told her that this past summer, I nearly lost my father because he needed a liver transplant, but had to wait for an organ to become available. I cried every day for almost 2 weeks, fearing that I would lose my dad. From my experience, I felt that I needed to share my story with this patient’s mother, because I knew exactly how she felt – to be afraid of losing someone that I love. I could empathize with her, because I had been in a similar situation. After we finished talking, she thanked me, telling me how grateful she was to have had our conversation. I felt like I hadn’t been able to help much, but she reassured me that I did.

The Good Life

In our readings of After Virtue by Alasdair MacIntyre, we discussed the idea of virtues and how it relates to what we call "the good life."

I liked the heroic society's idea of virtues, which states that a virtuous person is a person who upholds his role well. I felt that this greatly related to my service learning project. As a pre-med student and an aspiring physician, I hope to, one day, be able to use the knowledge and training that I have gained in medical school, in order to alleviate suffering and save human lives. Thus, my role as a pre-med student right now, is to expose myself to the medical world, and do what I can in order to help those who are suffering from physical injuries. By choosing to volunteer at the hospital to work with very sick pediatric and cancer patients, I felt that I was able to uphold my role.

By volunteering, I was also seeking a specific good, "the good life." We discussed in chapters 14 and 15 that what is good for me, and what is good for man, is the good that we should all be aiming for in life. I do believe that two universal goods in this world are health and happiness. By volunteering my time in the hospital, I felt that I was contributing to helping these patients regain both of these goods.

"Beauty is more than skin deep."

I watched TV and played monopoly with a 13 year old cancer patient today. She had been in the hospital for 3 months. She initially seemed very tired, but didn’t want for me to leave. Most of these patients are confined to a hospital room for most of the day. Consequently, most patients, especially extended stay patients, are very happy to have visitors. I had a really good conversation with her and talked about many things, including her family, school, and life at the hospital. She said her treatment was painful physically, but even moreso emotionally, because she was having a hard time accepting her changing appearance. It was a difficult subject for our conversation, because I didn’t know exactly what I could say to comfort her. I have to admit, one of the toughest aspects about working with cancer patients is to see them go through chemotherapy, lose all of their hair, lose all of the color in their face, and become completely weak and fragile. On the table next to her hospital bed, she had pictures of her family, including herself, before she became sick. She was a beautiful girl then, and I made sure to remind her that she is still a beautiful girl now. Talking with her made me so happy. She was such a sweet and funny girl, and at the end of the day, I felt so incredibly lucky to have had the chance to become friends with such a beautiful person, inside and out.