Be Thankful

Today marks my first shift working for the Ronald McDonald House. Contrary to what every little 6-year-old in our house thinks, I am not serving fries or asking, "Do you want a milkshake with that?"

The day started well with me actually finding the NICU in the hospital on time and finding the desk to buzz me in. Once inside the unit I found the manager who gave me a tour of the facilities. It's a very nice facility with 14 bedrooms located on two floors inside the NICU and the PICU. I then met the current "Volunteer of the month" and she showed me "the ropes" to volunteering. She was a very energetic talkative lady with probably a touch of ADD as everytime she got interrupted she would have to pause and say outloud, "What were we doing before? This is why I need a pen and paper." She was great. The job itself is something a small child could probably do for the most part which entails making coffee, lemonade, and iced tea (because it's Texas I was told and Ice tea is available all day down here). Stocking snack items in the kitchen and basically making sure everything is clean and orderly. Not too difficult. Then we check the overnight guests out of their rooms and get things ready for housekeeping to come through. The parents staying in the rooms vary from happy, almost English speaking families whose child is getting discharge from the hospital, to blank staring empty eyed mothers who don't know if their child will ever leave the hospital. It's hard to know what to say to a room full of parents who are waiting for a word from the doctor about cancer, heart transplants, disease and terminal illnesses. You can smile, but there usually aren't very many smiles past the soggy tissues in their hands. It is sad and unfortunately it is a part of life.

The volunteer of the month and I were talking about how things in life can be so aggravating. She said that one day she was so frustrated with the traffic and drivers all the way to the hospital that morning that she had had it. Then when she got inside she heard a lady talking on the phone saying, "The tumor is back. More radiation, more chemotherapy..." It puts things in perspective. There is so much that can go wrong with people...and with kids. I don't often think about it as I have a mostly healthy child (except for the scary ER seizure episode). So much can go wrong for no reason. It really makes you appreciate what you have in life. It puts things in perspective. I guess I shouldn't be so worried about the drivers that jack up all the traffic outside of Shipley's Donuts every day (you know what I'm talking about Mule and trigirl82. Causes me road rage.). I could be sitting next to a hospital bed somewhere just hoping that my kid gets to go to school some day.

Addendum: As a side note, on the way out I saw a woman sitting on a bench in the skywalk to the parking garage. She was a round as she was tall sitting on the bench and looked almost like she had no legs, except that I could see shoes poking out from the bottom of her floral dress. I wondered how she could breathe with all of that compressing on her heart and lungs. I am having a hard time breathing myself lately with a baby creeping up into my lungs, much less having an extra 300 lbs of weight around my abdomen. I don't know how she could possibly be comfortable sitting there. Perhaps fat squishes more than a baby so you are able to sit down more comfortably than an unmovable baby who doesn't squish around your entire body. I don't know. Deep thoughts, I know. I wish I had a picture.