My time as a hospital volunteer.

Last night, after writing that stellar blog entry, I crawled into bed.  Neil had been talking to me, but all I heard, bless his heart was, "Wah waaaaahhh wah Wah wAh" like how Charlie Brown hears adults.  I had plans to read some more of my new book, "Everything Bad is Good for You" but my head kind of slumped down like a geriatric patient after he's had his pants changed and finished his exciting dessert of butterscotch pudding.  It made me think of something this morning.

I worked as a candy striper in a small town hospital when I was 14.  It was my big debut into the world of volunteerism.  My area was long term care;  the elderly people who live out their lives in hospital rooms.  I was hoping to be assigned to holding babies in the nursery (it runs in the family, okay?).  I have never been in such a lonely place as that and I actually ended up having to quit a few months after starting because I was starting to suffer depression.  All of my people kept dying.  It was traumatic for me.

On the way in to my first day, my mom told me how I should never get rogaine on my hands because it would cause even my palms to grow hair.  Good advice, Mom.  I remember showing up at the hospital and being given my red and white striped pinny and name tag sticker, the rogaine advice planted firmly in my mind.  I am not sure how I could get rogaine on my hands, working as a candy striper but it was obviously something to be aware of while volunteering in a hospital. 

I never thought this would happen!

I drew some stars around my name on the sticker and I was half assed shown to the ward by a very busy nurse.  "This will be your area".   She listed off my duties as I stood there, a little bit stunned.  "You can bring the lunch trays and just sort of visit with them and stuff".  I was too afraid to ask questions.

I dug around in some drawers and wrote on the empty white board what lunch that day was going to be:  Easily Digestible Mush with Pudding.   I decorated it really nicely and waited for the praise to roll in.....

Tadaaaa......aaaaaaaaaaa........*ahem* aaaaaaaaa.......

....  Nothing.  

These people were really, really, really old and there wasn't really any other staff around.  I remember feeling a little jarred when one nurse came in and yelled into a patient's ear that it was time for her pills. She was deaf, but still.  It made me hyperventilate a little. 

So I would go get the lunch trays and hover around the people trying to help them eat.  Half of them would fall asleep and one man chronically shuffled out naked from the waist down saying, "I seem to have lost my pants".   One man, I think was a rebel and would spit his food onto the table after taking a bite.  Every bite got chewed and spat onto the table.  I didn't know how to deal with this, so I would wipe the food off the table and feed him another bite in total silence.  Repeat x 283423432 until all the food had been spit onto the table and wiped off.  Good job, Self.  Pat on the back.  Let him damn the man... or trembling candy striper... someone.  Damn them. 

There were some people who never left their rooms.  I would go in and hold one lady's hand for the entire shift sometimes.  Not very many family members came in.  Maybe just not during the hours I worked there.   I hope that's the case.

Another man would ask to go for walks, so we'd get him into his wheelchair and walk and walk around the hospital.  The hard part was that I didn't know what to say to these people.  I was 14.  I had nothing in common with them. Most of them couldn't really speak.   So I didn't really say anything.  I held their hands, wiped the food off their tables when they wanted to spit it the &%$# out, walked and walked and walked around the hospital with a wheelchair in tow, scratched itchy backs, shaved whiskers with an electric shaver, combed hair and cried for them when they passed away.   I never really knew how to talk to people in such a sad place.  I never want to be that old.

Also, FYI, through my careful diligence, I never grew any hair on my palms.  Just to set your mind at ease. Thanks, Mom.