My Day Of My Volunteering Program At The University Of Florida

Kicker, a 3 year-old boy, who has never been to a doctor, never received any type of shot or poke, eaten a clean, nutrient dense diet throughout his short three years and never had anything toxic on his skin, was sitting in the cold hospital room waiting for news of a diagnosis. Nurses came in and out of the waiting room, bringing in needles, advice, paperwork and machines. All of which were intimidating to a 3 year-old and his mother, Season, who happened to be a holistic nutritionist. A nurse came into the waiting room and informed Season that an Oncologist needed to speak with her. At that moment, Season began holding her jaw tight to fight back the tears knowing that Oncologist specialized in cancer.

Last May, I traveled with Alternative Breaks to New York for community service. During this service, I worked with Meals on Wheels who dedicate their time to provide food for the elderly of Manhattan. As I delivered the food to the seniors, I got a sense of fulfillment because I made them smile by providing them with food. Thus, I chose MDC’s Single Stop because I wanted to make a difference in my home campus by providing and assuring nourishment to those that do not have it just like I did in New York. As my first two years of college comes to an end, I wanted to leave a mark of my own here at home at Miami Dade College North Campus. During the month of September, I decided to partner up with a few of my peers to serve at MDC’s Single Stop.

After a week working in the hospital, I went on home visits with nurses, doctors, nutritionists, psychologists and a monk. The first patient lives in a shabby wooden house. A great contrast could be seen between the room that the patient lives in and the rest of the house. “The patient is diagnosed with prostate cancer with bone metastasis. The room is specially built for him by the hospital and his family. He won’t live long.” A nurse told me. On another visit, I met a man with esophagus cancer.

A child is usually portrayed as innocent and pure. Yamila, who is now 10, has been fighting cancer ever since she was 3 years old, when she was found to suffer from ALL. Yamila, whose family lived in Puerto Rico, underwent treatment at a local hospital. But the cancer came back. This time, her doctors recommended a bone marrow transplant and referred Yamila’s family to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. St. Jude invents more clinical trials than any other children’s hospital, which is why the world looks to St. Jude for new and better ways to treat childhood cancer. At St. Jude, Yamila underwent the bone marrow transplant, with her brother serving as her donor. “My daughter began riding her bike shortly after leaving the transplant unit,” said Yahaira, Yamila's mother. “The physical therapist would come to teach her some exercises, and all she would think about was her bike” said her mother. “St. Jude is a hospital where miracles happen,” Yamila said. Yamila portrayed a sad child’s life because after she recovered from cancer she got it

I shadowed medical professionals as they treated their patients, one of whom was a forty-something year-old man with Stage II lung cancer. I didn’t know his name or how long he'd been sick, but it was clear that he was desperate and emotionally worn. In the doorway between the scanning room and the observation room, I watched him prepare for tests. On my right, the patient stepped onto the “couch”, or the CT scan bed. I entered the observation room and was instructed to flick on a switch, alerting personnel to vacate the room so as not be exposed to the radiation. A red light flashed and the loud rumbling of the gantry startled me, a seemingly normal procedure to everyone else. Four doctors surrounded a control panel and a set of displays, shooting each other uncertain looks and mumbling what I assumed must have been bad news. Perhaps the tumor had spread. I followed the lead doctor into another room, never to hear of that patient again, never to learn what had become of

During my time as volunteer at Somerset Dade Academy, I was able to work closely with the elementary and middle school teacher. During each visit, I was able to follow Ms. Lee’s daily routine. In the morning, we had 30 minutes to plan and get her cart ready with supplies she needed for the day. Also, we would both create various model artworks to inspire her students to create something more original and imaginative. She wheeled her cart through certain elementary classes depending on her schedule. Depending on the grade level she was assign to that day, we were able to teach her students the fundamental concepts of arts and major art movements, all in 30 minutes. Every three weeks, she would focus on a concept, artist, or art movement. Additionally, she would assign vocabulary words, which her students would copy and also had access to them online on Quizlet. At the end, she would administer a summative test on everything they learned for the past three weeks. On the other hand, Ms. Lee’s middle school classes were different, more one-on-one, and it was a one-hour period. Her students were able to recreate impressionist and expressionist artworks, such as Monet’s Water Lilies, Van Gogh Starry Night and The Bedroom on wall-sized canvases.

This is your fifth time taking a visit to the hospital where your terminally ill grandfather lays. You walk through the main entrance and you get that uneasy feeling as you enter the hospital. Nervous as you hand the security your ID and they slip you your pass and dismiss you with have a good day. You take a deep breath when you enter the room. There he is lying there drained, exhausted.

I awoke with the sound of beeps in the distance. My eyes fluttered, eyelashes blocking my small spot of a view. In the corner, I could see my mom, her head in her hands, shaking slowly from tears. I gradually moved my head to the left. The room was bright, with white floors and bleached walls. There were multiple carts full of medical supplies right next to me. While scanning the room, I could hear my mother gasp and run out of the door. Moments later, a tall lanky guy walked into in the room. He was wearing scrubs with little stars and a light blue stethoscope was dangling from

“Right this way,” the nurse ahead of me was prompting me to a brightly lit hall that was completely foreign to me. I couldn’t help but be terrified by the sights and sounds around me: people chattering, machines methodically beeping, gurneys rushing past. It was my first time in a hospital and my eyes frantically searched each room looking for any trace of my father. She stopped suddenly and I turned to the bed in front of me but I could not comprehend what I saw. At such a young age, I idolized my father; I had never seen him so vulnerable. Seeing him laying in a hospital bed unconscious, surrounded by wires and tubes was like witnessing Superman encounter kryptonite. My dad’s car accident not only made him a quadriplegic, but also crippled

I woke up with my face pressed against cold glass, neck sore from a long and awkward nap. The view outside the windows of my family van is no different from the suburban landscape I had driven away from six hours ago, comforting in its familiarity. Finding Parrish Hall is easy, the iconic building larger than I expected. As I dutifully follow a tour guide through building after building, I can’t help but picture myself as a student at Swarthmore.

A 6-year-old girl was diagnosed with stage IV anaplastic Wilms’ tumor and had to undergo experimental chemotherapy, with less than a 5 percent chance of curing the deadly disease. Sadly, the personal account of this young child is highlighted in “Tell the Children” in the Journal of Clinical Oncology—written by Joanne Hilden, Jan Watterson, and Jody Chrastek, all from a hospital’s department of Hematology/Oncology. Not only does this young girl have to fight a relentless cancer, but she has to also go through this battle without understanding what she is dealing with. Hilden, Watterson, and Chrastek states that the parents were offered help in explaining to their daughter and her sister what may possibly happen: hospice (3193). Unfortunately, the parents’ response was, “We do not want the children told about this. Children should not have to deal with death. They should be free from that for as long as possible. We will answer what they ask, but we will not tell them what is happening or that our daughter is dying, and we do not want you to tell them, either” (3193). As a result of non-existent communication between the parent and the child, the young patient experienced a great deal of suffering and confusion. The parents declared that their child was comfortable; although, as time went on the child actually admitted to staff that she was, indeed, in pain (3193).

“Come back in three days and we will need to get you on chemotherapy.” Eve said with her fake smile like always. I started to wonder if that is actually her real smile. I was beginning to like her. Then I went up the day I had to get the chemotherapy to where my mom was staying. My finger shakes as I am pressing the number 5 on the Escalator. My heart was racing I was scared to see my mom in her hospital bed. I hear a loud noise in the escalator doors slide open. I put

It was early July in Southern California: the sun was high, the air was warm, and the palm trees were swaying. Unfortunately, the bright sun could not light the darkness of the pit I had been slowly falling into during my tumultuous school year at my new charter school. On that day, when the other girls were tanning beachside, I was sitting deskside. I was trapped in a tiny, moldy, yellow-carpeted education office at the school I had transferred to the year prior. Like my fading hope, the dusty chandelier was barely hanging on from the ceiling. The room’s peculiarity added to my anxiety, as I felt failure lingering in the musty air. Though I had been sheltered by my parents’ optimism, I knew what I would soon hear: “I am so sorry sweetheart,

Derived from a past era, the school retains the the original red-brick, but inside its features are modern looking. The clash of the school’s motif reflects the snafu of my plight portraying confidence on the outside but hiding secret emotions on the inside. To add to the injury, passive voice follows me here at STLCOP. I can never say what I think because I feel like people will not be interested, so I keep my thoughts squished into a tiny ball in my stomach, which is the ugly part. What is worse is that the school looks like it does not belong here, barely visible nestled between the skyscrapers of hospital buildings, and not belonging is a prevalent theme lately, which is “the bad.” Both literally and metaphorically, the transition from home to college is resulting in an in-between

I continued to watch and listen, hearing doctors yelling for anodynes to relieve any sort of pain a patient was feeling, and residents running like animals trying to find something to ease the pain, like anesthesia. I began to get tired of all the crazy in the operating room, so I decided to head to the waiting room, where all sorts of people come trying to find answers to relieve their pain. Usually, the people who sit in the waiting room don’t have any sort of life threatening disease, even though they think they do. I sat on an open chair next to a table. On the table was a book titled, “The Book of Pathology”, with the subtitle “All You’ll Ever Need to Know About Disease”. I flipped through, and after about a minute of trying to read, I realized a book on the cause and effects of disease wasn’t the most interesting subject for a 15-year-old. I picked up a gossip magazine and decided that this was the more interesting choice of reading. Reading in awe of the breakup between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, I began to hear someone talking. The only person near me was a man with a puppet on his hand that was sleeping. I went back to reading, thinking nothing of it. A minute later I heard someone talking but still, the only person next to me was the man with a