Not quite busy
Thursday, October 28, 2010
It's funny how even though my school schedule has been pretty relaxed lately, I still feel busy and haven't posted to this blog. So many things have happened in this past week that I want to post about, but I haven't found the time to upload pictures and actually write.
Last weekend, our church held an event called Love4Haiti. We recruited 1,000 volunteers to come and pack 285,000 meals for people in Haiti. It was an amazing event and very powerful. Our church partnered with Impact Lives to put on the event. One of the Impact Lives staff explained to everyone at the event that the food that we send is a matter of life and death. If the people of Haiti don't get food soon, they will die. Yikes...what a reality check. So often, I take for granted the fact that I have a roof over my head and food to eat.
Since the event recruited individuals from all over the community, this was also a neat outreach to people who may not belong to a church or know who Jesus is. It was great to be part of this awesome event. I'll post pictures a little later.
On a different note, I called a hospice around here yesterday to inquire about volunteering. I'm taking a death&dying class (if you've read my blog previously you might have noted that) and I'm interested in seeing what hospice care is like. To be honest, I'm both excited and terrified. People in hospice have a prognosis of 6 months or less to live. On the positive side, I am looking forward to developing relationships with the individuals in hospice and spending time with them. But, I'm a bit apprehensive of what to say to someone who is dying. I've never been around a person who is actively dying before and the thought scares me a bit.
My mom asked me why I'm even going to volunteer if I'm scared about what it might entail. I responded by saying that if I never volunteer and find out what it's actually like for myself, how will I ever know if it is actually a passion of mine? If I never try to volunteer with people who are dying, the thought will always scare me because I've never had exposure to it. So, I'm willing to give it a shot with the hope that I'll love it and that I will learn a lot about myself and the people who are at the hospice.
I'll keep you all posted on how that goes. I have to call the volunteer coordinator back today to find out more information about the program.
I hope you have a wonderful Thursday! :) I'm having dinner with a few friends after class tonight and am really excited to see them! I'll post more later.
1 comments:
Hey Anne!
I hope you stick with doing Hospice work. I did it in Madison and I LOVED it. I wish I had time to do it here too. Sometimes it's hard, especially if your patient is non-response to any stimuli. But it's amazing how much they love having someone there to talk to, play games with, and do lots of fun and relaxing things. Some patients like to talk about their illness, others keep quite. It's a neat experience overall. It's sad when you lose a patient, but it's comforting to know that you helped make the end other their lives worth it!
Oh, and, sometimes patients live much longer than 6 months. Every couple months they get "re-evaluated", so if their prognosis improves, they will leave. Or, they may get another 6-month "sentence" and be in Hospice for longer than 6 months.... it just depends on what the MD thinks at each evaluation!
So there ya go! I hope you do it and aren't too afraid about it. It's intimidating at first, but it's amazing after that! Good luck!
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