Kristen Post 1

I guess I'll go first. 

Hello all—I hope you are well and enjoying your summers so far.

I am interning with Rebecca Schwarz, the coordinator of a program at the Fletcher Allen Hospital called Art From The Heart, an incentive to engage pediatric hospital patients and their families through any kind of art or creative communication. The program is extremely flexible to each volunteer, so it is easy and natural to change the activities of the program to fit our individual interests and strengths. This being said, while AFTH is primarily art projects like painting, drawing, and so on, I am going to be implementing reading and writing once I get going.

There will be obvious gaps in my ability to write about this experience or provide specific examples because of patient confidentiality rules and obligations, but I promise that it will not hinder communication too much.

Last week was my first integration into the program and it was a whole lot of information and policies and sanitation guidelines to take in all at once. Most challenging of all, being the should-be-simple act of navigating the hospital. Let me just tell you that most hospitals make sense—once you figure out one floor and how it functions you can usually take that understanding and incorporate it to every floor. Not here. Every floor is different because there are technically three separate hospitals and buildings happening that are connected by a series of tunnels and talking elevators with different names. Luckily, so far I have been partnered with people who know where they are going so one instance where I walked confidentially in the wrong direction and right towards the morgue—I could be stopped.

Anyway, training went well—Rebecca took myself and the second intern, a psychology-art major from Connecticut through all the steps and we learned the behind the scenes functions of the Art Cart, proper hand washing, and our service to every single person we meet in the hospital environment. We were also lucky enough to be able to squeeze our Contact Precaution training in, too. This means that we will be allowed in hospital rooms that require us to wear PPE for our own health safety and that of the patients.

After training last week I went on two Shadow Shifts, meaning I tag along with the scheduled AFTH volunteers and jump right into the program but have their seniority to fall back on. I've done three shifts this week--they are for about 3 1/2 or 4 hours in the morning. The first part of the morning is always spent on the inpatient ward, where children stay overnight (or many nights) and can either occur in the playroom or their individual rooms if they are not well or interested enough to go to the playroom. We are given a list of children’s first names, rooms, and any precautions that we have to take specific to each room. We are not allowed access to specifics such as why they are in the hospital or anything like that—that way, when we walk into a room, it doesn’t matter what’s “wrong” with the children, we’re just there to play.

This is probably the most awkward part of the day because we walk around and knock on each door and ask the patient or their parents if they’d like to come to the playroom or if we can come inside to do any kind of art activity they want. I’m learning that in some situations it’s very easy and comfortable to ask and that in others I’m an unwelcome interruption. Two other big lessons so far are that 1) most pre-teens and teens are still very much asleep at 9 AM and 2) my biggest competition is, and will probably remain to be, iPhone products.

The second part of the morning happens in the Children’s Specialty Center, where patients go for appointments that they don’t have to be hospitalized for but where they still welcome distractions. Our first priority there is the infusion room—that’s where things like chemotherapy happen. Outside of that, we occupy the waiting room and grab any child’s attention we can.

If there aren’t any patients who are up for art-making in either place, there is time to organize the Art Cart or make Art Kits—little paper bags filled with a pre-determined project for children or whomever wants to create an art project on their own.  You select a few craft supplies that might somehow go together and write a tag-line on the bag that someone can follow. I made one Tuesday morning where I made an astronaut out of construction paper and pipe cleaners and put some more paper and fun things in the bag with the tag-line “Create a Super Spaceship for the Astronaut.” I’m thinking that these kits might be a good opportunity for stories. For example, if I write a small story appropriate for content and age of the ward and then ask them to draw a picture of the characters or something like that. I’m also going to create some interactive stories…like stories where there are blank parts and instructions of what kind of noun to put in the blank so the children are actually creating their own stories. This is one of my goals to have going by the next time we post. 

Other than that, I’d like to get to know the program a little better and how I can change or help it where necessary. There are some extra writing opportunities on the side that I’ll be able to be involved with too, such as a separate blog for AFTH, writing for a coloring book, and potentially a very special project involving poetry that I can’t tell you about yet. Of course I’d like to also get better at going place to place and avoiding getting hopelessly lost. I need to be more wary of Insta-Foam, too—when exiting a patient’s room Monday I got sprayed in the face whilst trying to sanitize my hands. Most importantly though, I’m excited to continue to have the opportunity to connect with the kids and take a little of the burden and emotional impact off the parents for even the smallest moments.

Here’s a few short stories I can share that will tell you a bit about what I’m up to:

On Tuesday my partner and I were laughing with a boy who accidentally threw the paper airplane we had just made over a railing and down onto a lower floor.

Another time I played with a sibling of a patient so the parent could relax a little. This one was too young to do art or anything, so we just made a tower out of blocks and knocked it over.

At the Specialty Center I had been working with a girl for a while and she decided to ask if I would help her make a Father’s Day card. We did—complete with two poems and cut-outs of things her father likes and a special message.

What happens in these moments is that I can feel the hospital disappear. It disappears for all of us, and for a few minutes, it doesn’t matter that the hospital has brought us together or that we have to play around IV poles and cords or that anybody’s sick at all. No one is thinking about what we are doing there—we’re just playing. If that had to be my only accomplishment for a whole month, I’d take it.