you are energy; you are light

Caroline gave another survey about our Child Life program to another parent today. When the mom handed it back to her she tried to explain what she wanted the survey to convey. She said… “You are energy. You are light.”

“To the world you may be one person. But to one person you may be the world.” I’m not egocentric enough claim that I am the world to anyone, but that familiar quote (which just happened to be in my journal today) has taken on new meaning on this trip.

Yesterday I had some great interventions with that boy I have been talking about. Let’s call him Joe because saying he’s “the boy who’s hand I hold and who hugged me during that treatment who…” gets kind of long! Anyway, Joe typically has a pretty flat affect during that day. If he shows any emotion, it’s a pretty sullen expression. I’d gone out and bought a ball at a local toy store, so I took to Joe yesterday morning for some play. He immediately lit up! We threw the ball back and forth and I made my arms into a basket and he shot hoops. He was laughing like I’ve never seen him laugh before. The little girl in bed across from him was eyeballing us, so I had them throw the ball back and forth between their beds…a make shift little play group. It was as so much fun. They were laughing and interacting. It was great. I got the bubbles out for the two younger kids in the bay to play with. Soon Joe let me know that he wanted to play as well. I went over to his bed and began blowing bubbles. He came alive!! His little personality came out of nowhere. He started punching the bubbles and making little cartoon punching noises. Soon he was kicking and moving. I had no idea bubbles could be so cathartic. It was so great to see. His burns cover his legs and one side of his body up through his armpit, so moving has been very difficult for him. He was moving all over that bed in ways I’ve never see. At one point I had to move him back onto the bed because he was hanging off. Usually he cries out in pain. This time he grimaced, but it was hard to see through his giant smile!! ☺ It was a giant breakthrough! He had his treatment later that day, and it seemed like all the ground we had gained was lost…he was back to his old sullen expression, but I know that progress is still there and slowly his spirit will return!

We have siblings on our unit. They are in different rooms for infection control, but yesterday they were allowed to spend some time together. The sister’s face is completely bandaged, so it’s difficult to tell her expressions. Her eyes are often sad and she typically just lies in her bed. When the brother came in to visit her, they just sat and looked at each other. I could tell the boy was kind of scared by how his sister looked. So I whipped out my trusty bubbles (I wear them around my neck here and don’t know how I ever went without them at home!) and began a spontaneous play session between the two of them. They blew bubbles at each other and tried to pop them. It was wonderful how play could help them look through the bandages and the burns and remember their sibling on the other side. That was the most play I’d been able to engage the little girl in since she’s been here, so I was very pleased. She even spoke to him to say goodbye. It was a wonderful time!

Today was my theatre day, so I spent most of the morning in the OR. Again- I have to say how wonderful the staff is at this hospital. They are so inviting and allow us access anywhere we want it. They quickly recognize the effect that our presence has on the children and always remind us of that. I love them! ☺ Yesterday one of the sisters in the OR pulled Caroline aside. Caroline thought she might be in trouble, but the lady just wanted to tell her how sincerely she appreciated us being there and the positive effect we had on calming the children before and after surgery. How great!

Being able to be available in theatre has been a great experience in seeing the difference Child Life’s presence makes there. We don’t have that luxury at home in many hospitals, but being here and seeing the difference it makes is awesome. Today I took a little 2 (almost 3) year old back to theatre. Her mom was nervous and didn’t want to accompany her, so I went. (just a reminder that kids are usually sedated in their parents arms in the OR – awesome!) Anyway…she is just the cutest thing ever. She only speaks Afrikaans, but we’re able to communicate usually pretty well. She calls me (and everyone else) nurse. So, I’ll be walking by her room and she’ll yet out – NURSE! I would get excited if I thought it was me she was excited about, but whenever I get close she just reaches for my bubbles. ☺ I took the bubbles with us when we went to theatre. We had so much fun playing for the first 25 minutes, but we were both wearing down after that. She was having a typical 2-year-old response to me not wanting her to spill the bubbles, so I took them away. Oops! ☺ She began crying and carrying on. I was thinking – oh great! Here I’m so supposed to be showing these people how calming and comforting CL can be and I’m making this kid throw a temper tantrum outside of the OR. Thankful I got her distracted with something else right before we went in. We’d played with the anesthesia mask quite a bit that morning, so when we went in the room, she was sitting up her bed and grabbed the mask and stuck it on her face. She giggled as she breathed in and out…and then she was out. It was great! ☺ I’d gone back to the ward during her surgery, so I wasn’t there when she came to recovery. They called back over to the ward to get someone from Child Life back because she was waking up. It was just awesome to see the staff not only accepting our presence, but requesting it. How great!

I had another holding marathon with my little 3 year old friend. Caroline had been helping with her dressings while I was in theatre, so I came to relieve her. Caroline told me that (let’s call her…) Missy had said something during the dressing change (she doesn’t speak very often). The nurses translated for Caroline that Missy had asked Caroline not to stop singing. We often sing to Missy and it was just great to find out she finds comfort in that – enough to say something about it! I held Missy for awhile after her dressing change, but then I had to see some other patients. When I walked back by her room later, she was crying. Again, Missy doesn’t usually show any emotion – happy or sad. So I went in and asked if she wanted to be held (I’m really glad my family is so good at charades!). I picked her up and held her for quite some time. She hugged my neck as usual. I could feel her relax and her breathing slow down as soon as I held her. I tried to put her down at one point, but she just cried and cried. I was so happy that she was showing emotion at all that I picked her back up – I didn’t want her to regress again if I put her down. I held her forever. I had sweat dripping off every part of my body, but I couldn’t put her down. I started thinking about how much love my parents have for me. It was totally humbling because I could see how much love I had in my heart for this little girl and I know the love my parents have for me is so much greater. The thing that leaves me most in wonder, though, is that God loves me even more than my parents. Is that possible?! That’s a lot of love. And he loves each of these children more than my heart has room to love. Wow! That’s power.

Caroline was telling me about a book one of the social workers here was talking to her about the other day. I guess the woman who wrote it was on Oprah or something. (Oprah’s pretty big here.☺) If you saw her on Oprah and if I’m telling the story wrong, than please post a comment and correct me. Anyway…this woman is a neurologist and I guess she suffered a stroke. She tells the story of her experience in the hospital after that stroke. She wasn’t able to communicate and she couldn’t understand who people were or what their role was in relationship to her. I’m not even sure she could understand what they were saying, but I’m not sure. Anyway, in the darkness and confusion, she said the one thing she could understand was the presence people had with them when the interacted with her. For example, she could tell when a nurse was having a bad day or lying to her. I guess at one point her mother came to visit her and the woman had no way of knowing who this person was. But her mom laid down in bed with her daughter and she said a feeling of comfort and safety came over her. I think kids are totally the same way. We often talk about babies being able to sense the stress their parents are feeling, but I’m realizing in the country where the kids don’t understand what I’m saying – they understand me in that same way. There is a comforting presence I have felt with me on this whole journey and I pray that His peace is what the kids are feeling when I am with them.

I am working with another little boy on another floor as a referral from the anesthesiologist that brought us here. He is very week and very small for his age. He typically just lies in his bed and moans or cries softly. My goal the first couple days was just to get him to make eye contact with me, so you can see I have to have much patience in our progress. Although improvements have been slow, I go every day and just sit and sing or read, or blow bubbles. I’m not able to hold him right now because he is in so much pain and usually throws up when he’s just moved to a sitting position. I’m not really sure how he feels about me yet, but I figure if I stay consistent he’ll understand my intent and eventually we’ll breakthrough. I noticed the other day he was feeling my hands a lot, and I wondered if perhaps he was feeling for textures. Today I took him some squishy blocks we have with various patterns on them and spent much of our time together helping him trace the patterns. I squeezed the block for him and it made a squeaky noise. At first I was afraid I’d frightened him, but then he started mimicking the movement of my hand when I squeaked. I followed his command and squeezed the ball when he moved his hand. We did that for some time and he seemed very pleased. That’s play my friends. I know I was doing it for him, but he was definitely directing our play. Tiny success, but success all the same! ☺

I’m ¼ of my way through this adventure now. It has already gone by so quickly, I’m holding on to these last 6 weeks as tightly as I can! I know they’re going to fly by and my time here will be over. I feel like my moments to accomplish what I wanted on this trip are dwindling quickly. I think I’m most nervous about making sure these changes I’m feeling within me, both personally and professionally are long lasting and don’t just go away as soon as I get home. Caroline’s message at the end of my journal today was – “Growth means change and change involves risk, stepping from the known to the unknown.” It’s funny how being here feels more like the known now and I’m nervous to go back home and the unknown of the lasting effect of these changes. Oh well - I still have 6 weeks! I’m not letting myself think about going home yet!!