Bittersweet Hospital Experiences

For anyone new to my blog, I am a volunteer in a children’s hospital doing recreational therapy for injured, ill, and handicapped children.  I try to engage them in activities to so they can forget about the reason they’re in the hospital and have a good time.

For most kids we just play games, do art work, or cook.  The conversation normally stays pretty basic with names, favorites, dreams, etc.  I do really enjoy each child I get to spend time with.

Here I am with my name tag! They spelled my name the easiest for the children to pronounce it (in French):  Mickaëla.

However, I have a new favorite kid at the hospital.  He is originally from England, so English is his first language.  He also helped me with some of the other kids, because I’m not super familiar with slang in French.  So would let me know what the slang words were that the other boys were saying.

The English-speaking boy really opened up to me because we could talk in English.  He has terribly violent shakes that start randomly.  I can see him trying so hard to physically force them to stop.  He also has a strict diet where he can’t eat salt or sugar… he says nothing tastes good 🙁

Yesterday it was chocolate mousse day.  The organization brought in a professional chef who taught the children to make chocolate mousse and then everyone got to eat some.  Now my favorite kid can’t eat this, so I went and watched a movie with him.  He chose Scream 2 (a horror movie).  So I went with him and we watched the movie in English.  When he got nervous, he would shake even more violently and out of control.  I felt so badly for him.  At one point he got so out of control that I sat next to him and held him still until he finally got it under control.  He thanked me, it was the most touching experience I’ve had yet.

We talked some more and I found out that he’s going to be leaving the hospital. While I was sad I wouldn’t get to spend more time with him since we had developed a connection; I’m super excited for him that he gets to go home!

Here are some photos of the chocolate mousse everyone made. I got to taste it, Yum!