Friday 2 October 2009

Chubby Girl Babies + Normie

Hey everyone, it's Joan!
Tonight's shift was very quiet, enjoyable, and low key.
Volunteers on shift were : me, Martin (subbing for Malcolm and Steve), Chris and Janelle (both subbing for Amanda).

After dinner of huge, delicious ravioli and turkey meat loaf (aka bird loaf), Jeffrey went back into bed. He is still recovering from his surgery from the summer, but he is doing much better!
Chris, Janelle, Martin, and I all went to the school room with Collin and Kay. Chris watched videos with Collin, Martin started chatting it up with Collin's dad, and Janelle and I sang songs to Kay. Kay has trouble hearing and has an implant in his ear to help him, but his earpiece keeps falling off! Still, when we sang songs that were familiar to him such as "Happy Birthday," he would all of a sudden give a huge grin in recognition and get excited! Tonight, however, he was not having his best day so the nurses put him to bed early.

Afterwards, I went downstairs to see if the nurses needed any help, and I got to hold and cuddle baby Kary. She is so cute!! She has smooth black hair, soft cheeks, tiny hands and feet...and she's so adorably chubby! I kept having to sit her up more because she has laboured breathing, and she fell asleep in my arms a couple of times. She loved the attention! Around me were 3 other baby girls : Jenna, whose parents were there for a bit, Maggie, and Josie.

The thing that will make me remember this shift most, however, is my discovery of an article taped onto the white board at the nurse's station. And who was this article about? Little Normie, real name : Nehal! (Since his real name is in the article, I suppose it won't do any harm to mention it here.) He's the little 4-year-old boy we've talked about many times who absolutely loves rockband. Nehal has a heart condition for which he has had 3 successful surgeries in the past, but because of the complexity of his condition, he is going to Stanford in November to receive another surgery. His mum, Shalini, is such a wonderful person, and Nehal is such a lovable little boy; I really hope they will find what they are looking for in California.
If you would like to read this article, please click HERE.

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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!