Keeping the Karma Flowing

Since we are without a car, we rely on public transportation and the odd cab and car service ride (which I really wished happened more often than what it actually does) to get us where we need to go. Usually the bus does a fine job transporting us from point A to point B, and in the case of my cancer treatment, actually made things easier. The bus runs about every fifteen minutes or so and dropped me off right in front of the hospital, from whence I would make my way through a lobby, down a long hallway, into an elevator, down one floor and then down a long hallway, from whence I would enter a tunnel which took me to Dr. Academic's office building. It was a pretty sweet situation, and it actually worked out better than if I'd driven down to the office, because all the parking at the hospital and Dr. Academic's office is pay. (Which, if you ask me, is just adding insult to injury when you find yourself in the hospital or stuck in a recliner receiving chemo for five hours at a shot.) Right before entering the tunnel, I would pass by the volunteer office, and every single time, I noticed it. I couldn't have told you what else was in that hallway, but I knew precisely where the volunteer's office was.

It's like someone was trying to tell me something.

For once, I listened.

A few days before Christmas, I was down at the mall, which isn't very far from the hospital, and I had some time before my bus came, and the idea that I should finally hop over to the hospital and look into volunteering came to mind. So, I meandered my way over there, entered the office and asked how one came to be a volunteer for the hospital. I was promptly handed a fat envelope, and was told to fill out the application and to mail it back. The week after Christmas, a lady called and asked met to come in for an interview, which I did. I was approved for service, obviously, and last week had an orientation session where I was shown around with a young girl, who is obviously only volunteering to add it to the "community service" section of her resume for her college applications. I received a maroon smock, had a horrific picture taken for my ID, and was given the barest of tours. The girl and I had a good laugh as we were made to watch a volunteering video circa 1985. ("Were you even born when people were wearing shoulder pads that large?" I asked. "No, thank God," she replied. "Yeah, the eighties were pretty heinous in terms of fashion." "How old were you when this was made?" she asked. "About your age." I spied her Uggs and thought she might regret them when she got to be around my age, just like I regret my old moon boots.) When the videos were done and we were quizzed about how to do blood bank runs, HIPPA regulations, and what the various hospital codes were, we were scheduled for our training shifts.

I had my first one today. I'm now a "Step Force" volunteer, which means, if someone needs something run around, you're the one to do it. We discharge patients, we do blood bank runs, we run samples to the lab and pathology, we pick-up patients from X-Ray and ultrasound and the like. The gentleman who is training me in has got to be around seventy-five or so and is completely spry and knows every single person in the hospital---I swear to God there wasn't a moment on every run we made that he didn't say 'hi' to someone or even joke around with them. Chattiness aside, he was apparently the right person to show me around as he knows the hospital like the back of his hand. I got the hang of it pretty quickly, and he had me discharging patients by myself well before the end of my shift---something I'm not supposed to be doing for two more shifts. He thought I did rather well, for the most part, but encouraged me to come down and walk around the place in my off hours to get my bearings better. I kept getting turned around every time I stepped off the elevator---and I stepped off the elevator a lot today.

It was weird being back in the patient areas of the hospital, particularly when the Step Force dispatch center is right down the hall from the room where I was incarcerated for a week after my surgery. It brought back many, many memories, but it was also good in that it reminded of some of the good ones, too. After I was released, it was easy to think of the hospital as the place where I found out I had cancer, and spent a horrible week trying to get better after severe surgery. Now, I'm reminded of the fact that this is the place people go to get better, and where the doctors and nurses and hundreds of other people work hard to achieve just that goal. Once you're out of the place and at home, you forget that the place has a rhythm to it, and that rhythm can be very comforting at times. It may not sound like a big thing, but really it is. When you're like myself, and have had your entire world thrown on its head in such a short space of time, the little things, like simply knowing when your food will be delivered, and when your nurses and nurses' assistants will come in to check your vitals, is, in a very weird way, comforting; it brings some order to your very chaotic world. I'm now a part of that rhythm, and it felt really good to give someone a wheelchair ride to the door, to home, and to the freedom that comes with good health.

When I applied to become a volunteer, they asked why I would want to do this, because they do have requirements and it's not just a job you can show up for when you have free time. You're on a schedule, you have to commit to at least three months worth of work, they have to do a background check, you have to have two Mantoux tests for tuberculosis, and blood tests to make sure you're immunized, etc. It's not a easy volunteering experience, in other words. They count on you to do what you say you're going to do, because things that need doing, even if it is grunt work, won't get done otherwise. I told them that the hospital had been very good to me and I wanted to keep the karma flowing by helping out, if I could. I told them my story and while they all gasped in horror, they understood my desire to give something back, and, fortunately, obliged me.

So, other than the fact that I ran into Dr. Cindy Lou Who three times today and each time she failed to recognize me, and that my feet are now killing me (I wore a pedometer today. Turns out I walked almost five miles.) and I had to take a vicodin to deal with the resulting neuropathies, it was a good day. The karma has started to flow again, and I like that. But most of all, I liked that I helped to keep the hospital's rhythm going, so someone else could benefit from the comfort of it.

Posted by Kathy at January 8, 2008 03:57 PM | TrackBack