Thursday 13: A Chemo and Senior Angels Update

 It looks like it has been almost two years since I did any kind of Chemo or Senior Angels update, so I think it’s definitely time for one. In the interest of not letting it get too long, I thought a Thursday 13 would be a good format for it.

If you’re not familiar with Chemo Angels and Senior Angels, you can read my long post about them here. The very short version is that they’re programs that match volunteers (known as card angels or chemo angels) with patients or seniors (known as buddies), and the volunteer sends cards/letters to the patient/senior. I volunteer as a card angel with both programs.

As usual, with this kind of post, the photos are just a random assortment.

 

Now, on to the update.

1. I’m still writing to my original senior buddy. I’ve been writing to her since November 2019, shortly after I started with the program. She has written me back a few times and is doing well overall.

2. Her daughter manages her check-ins and is great about mentioning specific things that she enjoys hearing about or pictures she really likes, which makes it much easier to write to her.

3. My chemo buddy from last time (the one who sent me the sweet gift at the beginning of 2021) finished with the program. Unfortunately, she’ll most likely be back for more chemo at some point, but she was getting an extended break and leaving the program for that.

4. The chemo buddy who became my regular buddy after I was substitute card angel for a while also finished with the program during an extended chemo break. We’ve exchanged a few emails since then, and she sent me a Christmas card last year. It sounds like she’s doing fairly well, which makes me very happy.

5. My first-ever teenage buddy, the one I called Anna in my last update, finished her chemo and is cancer free. Her mom has posted a few updates on the Facebook page she set up during Anna’s chemo. Anna’s hair has grown back and was beautiful in her prom pictures. She will start college in the fall and is living life to the full. I love those updates, and I’m delighted at how well she’s doing after everything she went through.

6. I had another teenage buddy for most of last year. We’ll call her Kate for purposes of the update. Kate finished her chemo earlier this year and is now cancer free. Kate’s mom wasn’t as detailed in her check-ins as Anna’s mom was, so it was a little harder to gauge what she did or didn’t like. I’m delighted that she’s finished and cancer free.

7. Last summer, I substituted for a 10-year-old girl for about a month while her regular card angel took a break. We’ll call her Denise for purposes of the update. Denise loves to draw, and at the end of my time writing to her, she sent me some pictures she drew of my cats. (Yes, I always share pictures of my cats with my buddies.) Because I was only her substitute, I didn’t get updates about Denise and her progress. I truly hope she’s healthy and happy now.

8. That’s the only bad thing about being a substitute; that you don’t find out when they finish their treatment or how they’re doing.

9. Once my assignment with Kate ended, I got back on the list for another buddy. I was matched to my newest buddy last month. We’ll call her Jane for update purposes.

10. It’s too soon to have heard anything from a check-in of Jane’s, and her information sheet was a little sparse. So, right now, I’m mostly guessing about what to write to her about. I’m hoping that she’ll provide a little more information in some of her check-ins. She does like to read, though, so talking about books is always an option.

11. Recently, Chemo Angels has asked for volunteers willing to write to male patients (adults and/or teenagers). Apparently, some volunteers are only comfortable writing to women or young childreb, and there’s a shortage of volunteers willing to take on male buddies. If you’re interested in volunteering and willing to have a male buddy, this is a great time to sign up. If you’re on the fence about volunteering with Chemo/Senior Angels, I highly encourage you to give it a try. It’s not very time-consuming at all, and it’s an incredibly rewarding experience. So many of the volunteers in the Facebook group talk about feeling like we get more from it than our buddies do, and I really feel like that’s true sometimes.

12. I’ve volunteered to take a male buddy if there’s someone with some interests in common with me. Now that I’ve had a couple of teenage buddies, I’m fine with having a younger buddy (though I’m still not up for taking on a very young child). And I work in a very male-dominated field, so I’m perfectly fine with having a male buddy.

13. I’m still so grateful to Bijoux and Betty for sharing their experiences with Chemo Angels. I don’t think I would have heard of the program otherwise, and I love being a card angel.

 

I truly believe that we all have a responsibility to do something, however small, to help others if we’re able. At times, I’ve had a hard time finding that something for myself, but Chemo Angels/Senior Angels has been a really good fit for me. I know it’s a very, very small thing in the grand scheme of things, but I’m okay with that. I like small, behind-the-scenes things, and I’m very much okay with sending cards that hopefully brighten someone’s day a little bit.

Driving Miss Sheila

I think she's happy to be on her way home!

Today’s post is a little later than usual because today I was able to be a small part of getting this sweet girl to her forever home.  This is Sheila; she was in a shelter with a very high euthanasia rate in a rural county.  She appears to have had multiple litters of puppies and is also heartworm positive.  Sheila’s outlook was very bleak until a rescue got involved and a very kind person stepped in to adopt her and take care of her heartworm treatment.  Sheila’s new family is about nine hours away from the shelter she was in, so that’s where the volunteer transport came in. 

I was able to drive Sheila for one of the hour “legs” of her journey.  There are about seven people driving Sheila on legs of about an hour each, and her new dad is driving the rest of the way to meet her, so by this evening this sweet little girl will be settling into her new home.

 It was a great way to spend part of the weekend; I got to hang out with an adorable, sweet dog, and meet some really nice people.  It’s always a good feeling to drive on a transport, but today was especially good because Sheila’s new dad is SO excited to have her; he has been calling to check on her and personally thank the drivers.  It feels good to help, even if only a little, to get her to a home like that.

Finding My Volunteer Niche

My husband volunteers at a fire department, and has for years.  Many of my friends volunteer for various organizations, and one of my friends has been a foster parent for years, so I was constantly around people who give of their time for some greater good.  I waned to volunteer for something too.  I believe it’s the right thing to do; if everyone volunteered for something a lot of things would get done, and I truly believe the world would be a better place. 

My problem was in deciding what to volunteer for; I’m not the most outgoing person, I’m not at all physically strong,  I’m sort of prissy and don’t like to get dirty, I don’t care for large crowds, I love quiet, and I didn’t want a huge time commitment .  But I thought surely there was something out there that I could do to make a small difference without wrecking my little world as I know it.  So began my saga of failed volunteer attempts.

I tried volunteering with a rape crisis center, but the training program, which had to be completed in order to volunteer, was essentially full time, which didn’t work with my full time job and long commute.  I considered (for about five minutes) a children’s shelter, but I’m not good with kids, so I abandoned that idea very quickly. 

Next came my quest to find some sort of office work to do on a volunteer basis.  It’s what I do for a living, so why not just add a few more hours a week for a good cause?  That didn’t go so well either; many of the places that I tried had paid office positions, and didn’t need volunteers for them.  Some places didn’t have enough office work to need a volunteer.  I finally found a legal aid type place that I was very excited about, but I quickly learned that the person in charge had a definite political agenda that was very different from mine.  So I stopped volunteering there before I even made it out of training.

After my disappointing, and brief, stint as an office worker volunteer I decided to try something more hands- on.  I spent one Saturday morning freezing outside the mall with a pet welfare group attempting to promote spaying and neutering, definitely something I feel strongly about.  The methods, however, were not so much to my style and liking; the posters and signs made many people (including myself) cry, and some of the people were a little, let’s say, intense, for me.  A good group to be sure, but definitely not my niche.

Still going with the hands-on approach I next attempted an animal shelter.  I love animals, and had heard great things about this one.  I went, and the experience wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t entirely what I was looking for.  The noise level in the shelter was very intense (for a person who rarely even plays the car radio this is a BIG deal) and the shelter is about 45 minutes from my house, so if I had two hours to spare, only about 30 minutes would actually be spent volunteering.  I kept meaning to go back there, but never found the time, or if I’m honest, the wherewithal to endure the noise.

I began to wonder if there was something inherently wrong with me that made it impossible for me to volunteer, some basic human kindness gene that I was missing.  Plenty of other people manage to find the time to do something good, without complaining about the noise, the commute, the time, or anything else.

Then a co-worker talked to me about animal transports.  I had never heard of them before, but basically a rescue group pulls animals from a high kill shelter and volunteer coordinators arrange for volunteers to drive the animals wherever they need to go.  Many transports are on the weekend, and are usually broken into one to two hour segments, or “legs”.  This sounded promising! 

I was a little hesitant to sign up at first; many of the legs in my area involved driving to places I’d never been before, and I have a terrible sense of direction.  I have literally gotten lost in revolving doors.  I wanted to help, but I wasn’t sure driving around lost with some poor dog qualified as “helping”.  Then there was a leg that involved picking animals up from a shelter near one of my teenage hang-outs and driving them just a little past where I live now.  This I could do!

I signed up for that transport on a Monday and anxiously awaited my Saturday morning leg.  The transport coordinator was great about answering my questions.

In the meantime, I received another email about another transport that needed just one leg filled, to Tennessee.  It was only about an hour and a half drive, only an hour from where I would be dropping off the animals from the first transport.  My best friend, who has a sense of direction that is like having GPS, agreed to go with me if I signed up for the transport to Tennessee, and so I did.

The Friday afternoon and evening before the transports I made contact with everyone I needed to; drivers on other end of both legs, the transport coordinators, and one of the rescue groups.  Everyone was very pleasant, and as the communication was largely by email, it didn’t even disrupt our Friday night plans.

Saturday was one of those beautiful, blue skies and puffy clouds days where everything seems right in the world.  The drive to the shelter was easy; it was a drive I’d made literally hundreds of times, and all went well in picking up the animals from the shelter.  My friend and I delivered all six animals (two dogs and four cats) to the next driver, and were able to try a new restaurant while waiting for the next transport.  The drive to Tennessee was absolutely beautiful, and the two dogs from that trip were a lot of fun. 

When my husband asked how it went, I knew I’d finally found my niche.  The trips were easy, the people were all kind and pleasant to deal with, and the animals were precious; driving them part of the way to a second chance at life was an amazing feeling. 

I have since signed up for more transports, usually the same trip to Tennessee.  I know how to get there now, and am not so worried about directions.  There are transports most weekends, so I seem to be able to sign up as often as I’d like, and there’s no guilt tripping or explanations needed on weekends when I’m not able to sign up for one.  I've met some really amazing people and made some new friends.  It’s not glamorous, and it’s not making a huge impact (except, I like to hope, to the animals we drive and the families who adopt them) on the world, but I have finally found my volunteer niche.

Volunteer Firefighters

Think about the last time the local fire department came to your home or business, or the last time they directed you around a wreck on the interstate.  There’s a pretty big chance that at least some of those people weren’t being paid for the work they were doing; they were volunteer firefighters.   

The reasons for becoming a volunteer firefighter are as varied as the men and women who choose to volunteer, but include following in a parent’s footsteps, a desire to help and improve the community, a need for something exciting, or a desire for positive role models.  Regardless of the reasons for volunteering, volunteer firefighters provide valuable services for their communities including responding to medical calls (approximately half of all volunteer firefighters have an EMT certification), traffic control, and rescue work, which includes everything from people stuck in elevators to vehicle extrication, as well as preparing landing zones for emergency helicopters. 

Volunteer firefighters are highly dedicated, usually spending a minimum of about 35 hours per month on training, meetings, and responding to calls.  Many have been volunteering for ten or more years, and plan to continue volunteering for many more years.