Today was a good day. I arrived at the hospital today excited and ready for any challenge that may come my way. Going to the hospital is something I really do look forward to every Monday and Wednesday. Below is the children's hospital's logo! It is everywhere around the children's hospital. My volunteer polo just has the regular hospital logo (below the children's hospital logo) on it.
On Monday's and Wednesday's there is another student from USC-Upstate at the hospital as well. Its nice to have another student to interact with and share experiences with while I'm at the hospital. We can use each other's creative ideas to come up with neat activities for the children. Today, instead of me going around to all the rooms on the 5th and 6th floors, we divided up the floors. Today, I had the 6th floor. I'm sure glad we split up the rooms because both of us were SO busy tonight. I had several children who were interested in painting. I LOVE to paint and it was neat using my creativity to find objects or pictures for them to paint. I also had the opportunity to sit with a child while their parent went to go get dinner from the food court. This patient was very sick and was unable to speak or move on without help. It was nice to be able to give the parent a few moments to grab dinner and get out of the hospital room. This patient was there on Monday as well, so I know the parent must be getting tired of the hospital. I also headed down to the 5th floor to help the other student. I was able to spend time with a teenager making a necklace. We also used fuse beads to create a wax animal. I have included a picture of what fuse beads look like, and what you can create with them.
On Monday's and Wednesday's there is another student from USC-Upstate at the hospital as well. Its nice to have another student to interact with and share experiences with while I'm at the hospital. We can use each other's creative ideas to come up with neat activities for the children. Today, instead of me going around to all the rooms on the 5th and 6th floors, we divided up the floors. Today, I had the 6th floor. I'm sure glad we split up the rooms because both of us were SO busy tonight. I had several children who were interested in painting. I LOVE to paint and it was neat using my creativity to find objects or pictures for them to paint. I also had the opportunity to sit with a child while their parent went to go get dinner from the food court. This patient was very sick and was unable to speak or move on without help. It was nice to be able to give the parent a few moments to grab dinner and get out of the hospital room. This patient was there on Monday as well, so I know the parent must be getting tired of the hospital. I also headed down to the 5th floor to help the other student. I was able to spend time with a teenager making a necklace. We also used fuse beads to create a wax animal. I have included a picture of what fuse beads look like, and what you can create with them.
The patient's mother and herself commented on how much child life had impacted her life during her time at the hospital. She was so excited to hear that I wanted to be a child life specialist. I was also able to visit the PICU tonight to take a family some musical toys for their young child. They were so relieved to have something to distract their child from all the cords and tubes. We were so busy tonight that we didn't even make it to the oncology / hematology unit. My shift technically ends at 8:30 but I didn't leave the hospital until 9! All the families seemed to be more welcoming tonight. The patients were more talkative as well. It was neat getting to see patients I saw on Monday again. I can already tell that I'm forming relationships with the patients who have been there for several days. I hate that I have to wait until Monday to volunteer again.
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