Volunteer Activity.

I was up to see Sara on Friday. Its good to see her out of ICU again. Less wires all over the place. This time around she has a room to her self in direct view of the nurses station. Although, from the desk, they can only see her feet.

One definite change I noticed was the extra attention coming Sara's way. I'm not talking about from the nurses though. There are several volunteers making rounds it seems. Three times, there was a knock on the door from these volunteers.

The 1st one asked if She wanted to watch any videos. They apparently have a small selection of them. I told them that I already had it covered, but thank you. As usual, I had brought my Xbox and we were getting ready to watch "Princess Mononoke". The woman thought that it was great that I went through the effort of bringing in movies, and setting them up for Sara though.

The second time One of them came, She was pushing around what appeared to be a converted laundry bin. I couldn't see inside, but she asked if Sara wanted anything. She listed a few things, "Books & Magazines" were a couple of them. She also said "We have teddy bears" I looked at Sara, and then at her stuffed penguin, sparky. I told the woman "I think we're ok. She actually has a stuffed penguin already" Her response was something along the lines of "Oh, you've already gotten one" So I'm slightly afraid that they'll think that Sparky is one of theirs, and take it back at some point. But I'm probably just being over protective of it because I was the one that gave it to her. The woman Said she would come by later.

The third time, we were actually visited by a pair of what appeared to be high school girls. Most likely doing Community service. The looked really surprised and confused when they opened the door. They probably weren't used to seeing visitors lying next to patients in the hospital beds. After a few moments of confused silence, I paused the movie and asked if i could help them. The poor girls seemed frightened almost. (I have always known that I scare small children, I didn't expect it to ever extend up to high school age though.) The were there to keep her company for a while. I told them that it was fine, but I was still going to be there for another few hours. They said they would come back later and promptly backed out of the room.

I think It's great that they Have volunteers doing this stuff. Unfortunately I feel kinda bad for unintentionally thwarting their efforts at kindness and community service by beating them too it in. I guess it just allows them to give that attention to other people in the hospital that don't get as much attention from friends and family as Sara does. I hope those people come around again in the earlier parts of the day when Sara doesn't have us around.

As far as Sara's status goes, She's doing well by what I could see. Her vitals were good, and she wasn't coughing much either. She moved Her arms while I was there again too. That's always good to see. She must have been pretty tired though. She was actually napping when I got there. So I just stayed quiet and hung up some strands of origami cranes that I made from the TV mount.

There are 200 in the room now, along with 100 more in the flower press under my bed. (The first strands I made with the wings folded out. But they stack better and take up less room if they are folded up. So I put them in a press to flatten them out again.) I made a bunch more yesterday too, so I'm basically 1/3 of the way to my goal (1,000)..... I'm making slow progress.... Things like School are taking a higher priority.

I also brought in some Poster board with signatures from a bunch of teams at the San Jose F.I.R.S.T. Robotics Competition. Sara and I were part of our high school robotics team. So the team this year had the other competitors sign posters for her. I think its really great.

~Daniel H.