Working with Sick Children

I serve on several committees at work. I am member of the Care Committee which plans fun events for the employees, Riley Golf Outing which procures donations for Riley Children’s hospital and I am the leader of the Wellness Committee which provides weight loss and healthy living challenges for the employees. I like being part of the committees and they give me an outlet for my social nature as well as my creativeness while I am at work.

Last week I attended an event for the Riley Committee that was very fun and interesting. This was the day we got to present the $20,000 check to the hospital, take photos and get a tour of the physicality. This is always a good day and a nice way to wrap up the prior year’s donation drive. A few days before the event the coordinator sent an email asking for volunteers to work with the children for two hours after the photo opp. I ignored the email and continued with my work. Then I got cornered. I was pressured to go by two co-workers and while I am likely to jump at any excuse to be away from work, the thought of working with the sick children made my stomach flutter in nervousness.

I ended up saying yes, but all along I was trying to figure out ways to get out of this commitment. My looks of fear and slight disgust did nothing to dissuade my co-workers from making me go. The day arrived and we went through the usual photos and check presentation. Look at me in the middle. Why am I always in the middle of these kinds of group photographs. This is what happens when you are short. Then the check looks as if it is cutting me off at the neck.

After the check presentation and our brief tour it was time to work with the children. On this day they were having a themed party in their atrium. I lucked out and the theme was based on the Library. Great…I know stuff about books. Not children’s books, but books. Anyway our job was to split up into two teams of two and man a booth. We had two choices, paper journals or book marks. Apparently, all of us wanted to work on the bookmarks so I conceded and worked on the journals. Someone had stapled colored construction paper over top of some plain white paper to make some homemade journals.

We got ourselves settled and then came the children. Oftentimes they would come by our table and take a paper journal and leave. But not all of the time. There were two particular children that stood out to me. The first one was a little boy who was super friendly (umm… annoying) and he was at our table for at least an hour coloring. I asked him what he wanted to draw and he replied “I dunno”, I suggested a cat and I got a look of disdain. He decided to draw a black panther. I gave him some encouragement and he ended up creating a book of panthers. One of the pictures depicted the panther eating a monkey. I am not sure why he chose a monkey but he did. I thought the panther should eat rats but he didn’t want to draw them. As he continued to draw the viscous panthers he kept up a nonstop conversation with anyone who would listen. Guess what….it was my job to listen. He told me about the rats that live in his house (his mom explained that they live in the country and they have field mice) and how he got his photo taken with the mayor that morning. Cool! Then we finally hit upon a topic that I could talk about. The 360. He doesn’t play any games that I do but at least we found some common ground.

The second child was a thirteen year old goth girl. Seriously! Her mom was goth also. She decided to make a little book about butterflies for her sick brother. Very sweet. She didn’t speak for most of the 20 minutes she was at the table but she was very creative and she made a very nice book. Little girls are so artistic.

So I guess the afternoon of sick children didn’t kill me. I was glad that my nervousness went away quickly and I was able to find a way to have a good time.  I would like to thank my chameleon like tendencies that allow me to fit into most situations.