Saturday 1 March 2008

Friday at the House

Another great night despite the Canucks losing.
Miracles of miracles Tony, Kyle, and I were at the house together for the first time in about 5 months. Kyle has been with the house as a peer volunteer for years...and he volunteers everywhere else, and is a full time time student working on I don't know how many degrees.
Our shift starts at 5 pm. This is what happens when you come to your shift; you sign in, go and find out what is happening from the 1-5 shift volunteers, and then go EAT.

Like every house the kitchen is the heart of the house and Shelley cooks some mighty fine cuisine. Everybody in the house comes down for supper...whether you can eat or not!

In the house this Friday are Brad, Saul, Kevin, Kent, Morgan, and Mikey (again...not real names...do you realise how difficult it is to come up with fake names that fit?)

Saul has been in the house for over three weeks. He lives in the Okanagan and has been getting stuff done at Children's Hospital I think. I would hazaard a guess that he is pretty tired of being here.He and Tony hung out in in the big TV room most of the night.
Brad is an 18 year old who is in for some respite care.
Kevin is a Grade 5 boy from the Okanagan and has been at the house for a week with his mum, dad, and "my boy" Justin his 2 year old brother.

Kent. Not sure how old Kent is. If you want to see his face you need to hold his head up for him. When you do that you are rewarded with a huge grin and these incredibly bright eyes. Kyle was hanging with Kent and Brad while I was playing blocks with Justin...Kevin's 'boy'. Kyle thinks that Kent is having a seizure of some sort. He goes down to get a nurse and I watch Kent. The seizure stops and I lift up Kent's head. He kind of stares blankly at me for about 30 seconds...and the BANG...his eyes turn on and he flashes a big grin!
Mikey has just hanging in his chair fading in and out of sleep the whole night!

A little later Kent lets loose some nasty smelling farts...we think it might be time for hime to go to the Kid's Floor and take care of something important.

Another neat night at the house.
Malcolm

The Blog

My name is Malcolm and I was a volunteer at Canuck Place Children's Hospice in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for nearly seven years. Now I support them by raising money by participating in the Canuck Place Adventure Challenges!


I said hospice. Not really a word that you associate with children but there you go. We will tell you about the house as this blog progresses with the hope that you will learn, and as you learn we hope that you will share. The purpose of the Adventure Challenge is to raise money for AND awareness about Canuck Place.

The name of each kid at the house you read about has been changed.

September 14th and 15th are the dates for the next Adventure Challenges.

You can sponsor me for the race here: Adventure Challenge
Maybe you should do the race?

Names:

Just a quick note about the names of the kids in the house that you will read about: they are made up!