Flashback

I first noticed the shiny floors. The reflection from the florescent lights above created a hazy light down the long corridor. I stepped down the hall timidly, an unsure teenager, wondering of what was to come. Smells pervaded the air. Some distinctly of bodily excrement. Others of chemicals mixed in with food and human sickness. At the nurses station, I was given a gruff glance over and sent to collect the morning meal trays. I stopped at the first door, slightly ajar, chart hanging from a hook, rhythmic beeping from within. My first day as a volunteer. My first exposure to the field I would one day pursue. Medicine.

I walked into the room. Cafeteria smells wafted from the tray on her lap. She didn't look sick but her face offered no greeting. I smiled and said hello. No expression. I noticed the tubes in her arm, one in her chest, one in her neck, one peeping out from under the white crisp sheets. I held my empty hands up. I told her I was not there to do any procedures to her- I was a volunteer and was there to pick up her meal tray. Her face softened. Still no words but her eyes were welcoming. She offered it to me. My first successful retrieval of a meal tray. The nurses would be so proud.

After a while, I learned some of the rhythms of the floor. Patients on that floor were not expected to live very long. I rarely saw the same patients more than twice. Patients who could communicate were happy to see me as I was not there to inflict pain. Most of them I never spoke to, as they were motionless, their breathing or heart monitor sounds the only indication they were alive. I was happiest when I was needed by the patients, such as helping the blind man navigate his meal tray to prepare his own tea. Or showing the Scottish guy the one channel to watch soccer. Or bringing an extra pillow and blanket to the lady who was constantly freezing. I also helped out the nurses, helping to roll the immobile patients to prevent bed sores, preparing the IV trays, and making hospital corners on the sheets.

After a couple weeks, the first-tray lady returned. This time, she appeared ill, her face drawn, her eyes tired. I started a bit when I saw her, surprised and saddened she was back. Yet, her eyes smiled in recognition and she patted the bed. Come sit here, she motioned. She handed me a book and nodded feebly toward it. I spent a while reading to her. The book was Bambi, by Felix Salten. I never realized that there was a real and serious book, unDisnified, about life, relationships, struggle, and death. She fell asleep after a while, still holding my hand. Still no expression while awake but as soon as her breathing reflected sleep, her face became joyous, full of expression and movement. I was mesmerized. I felt like she had wanted to show me in sleep what she could not awake.

As an impressionable teenager, the humanity of her gesture has stuck with me to this day. A complete stranger trusted me enough to show me a very personal side of herself. Whether she knew it or not, the experience impacted decisions I have made since and was a prelude to the intense and intimate interactions those in the health field are privileged to experience.

My time as a volunteer opened my eyes to the wonder and agony that is life. It also left me with an awareness. The people within those walls are naked, physically and psychologically, as they are prodded, drugged, and pierced, their dignity challenged, their will tested. Their options are usually limited, some alternate paths worse than their disease, some offer only a slight advantage to their survival. Some are not ready to leave and they are taken anyway. Some want to be let go, yet, life painfully persists. All of it lies within the realm of medicine, fascinating at times, unfathomable at others, a reflection of truth always. Nothing else like it exists.