2011 saw some pretty amazing things around The House, but there was some crazier stuff going on in the medical world. We thought that we’d share some of them with you:
Cantaloupes. Fruit is good for you, right? It apparently matters where it came from. A farm in Colorado sent tasty melons to outlets across the United States, and they were tainted with listeria. 150 people became violently ill and 29 people died. It was far from the first such outbreak, but it was certainly another wakeup call. Outbreaks of foodborne illness have involved everything from beef and meat products to vegetables and peanut butter. Take some advice: wash thoroughly and cook properly.
Vaccines DON’T cause autism. A study in 1998 seemed to point to the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and a link to causing autism in young children. Millions of parents questioned having their children vaccinated, and many refused the vaccine altogether. The British Medical Journal revealed last year that the lead researcher had faked his results, and 10 researchers said that his findings were horse manure. The researcher has since had his license to practice as an MD revoked, but parents are still worried about the vaccine. It’s always something, isn’t it? There was also a viral story travelling around the Internet about giving your kids chicken pox with suckers that had been licked by sick kids. You’d be better off just letting them go to school.
To screen or not to screen; that is the question. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force said that men should not get a blood test screening for prostate cancer. Oh, and women under 50 should not get mammograms. Or was it 40? Or was it cervical cancer screening? The Centers for Disease Control, the Surgeon General, the American Cancer Society, and everyone else with a horse in the race got their 2 cents in, and there’s still no consensus. The best first volley in fighting cancer is still early treatment, so we think that if you’re worried or at risk you should get screened. But what do we know.
Put down your gadget. The World Health Organization announced that your cell phone was giving you a direct line to cancer. They also said that maybe it isn’t. We think that you’re cell phone is at its most dangerous when you’re driving. Or walking in a mall.
The brain is a remarkable thing. It’s fragile, it’s resilient, and it’s the world’s most amazing computer. The late Steve Jobs used his for creating the iPhone and one of the world’s most profitable companies (though he my not have used it for treating his cancer early). Gabrielle Giffords used hers to return to the floor of Congress after being shot in the head at point-blank range. The powers-that-be in sports are using theirs to finally address the concern over concussion in football players.
Stem Cells are here! Northwestern Medicine researchers are using them to repair a neuron that dies early in Alzheimer’s sufferers. They’re being tested in a patient who was paralyzed in an accident. And a study of patients with heart disease showed improvement after stem cell therapies. What was exciting about the heart patients was that the stem cell therapy went after their disease instead of just addressing symptoms.
Defining Alzheimer’s. About 5 million people in the U.S. have Alzheimer’s, and the disease can be as impactful for a family as it is for the patient. Studies by the National Institute on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Association, and others were able to identify new ways to diagnose and treat the Big A, and as our population gets older this is some important stuff. Articles and research have pointed to the role of diet and exercise (always favorites!) and Tennessee Coach Pat Summit showed that a diagnosis is not a death sentence. Made us closet Volunteer fans, but don’t tell the Rams.
Food: It’s not just for Listeria. Eat peanut butter, or don’t. Fat is good, but only if it’s good fat. Your diet should be high in protein or low in protein, depending on whether or not you’re eating fish. Oh, and your snapper may be a catfish that was labeled as grouper. Just when you were ready to stick a fork in it the U.S.D.A. flambéed the food pyramid and cooked up a plate. We’re going back to Gummi Bears.
Pssst: I need drugs. In an age that seems to have a clinical diagnosis for everything (and a corresponding television commercial), we have seen some scary drug shortages. Drug manufacturers spend a great deal of time and money on research to come up with amazing medicines. They then spend a great deal of time and money marketing these cures and fixes. The Food and Drug Administration can regulate where they come from and how they are made, but not how much. The past year has seen dangerous shortages in drugs to treat cancer, heart disease, depression, and others. In some cases the shortage compromised the care of a patient! We have no shortage of cell phones or Justin Bieber sightings, but chemotherapy? Pretty important stuff.
Lastly (drumroll, please), we’re still here. We still open our doors and our hearts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of the year. Christmas? We were here. New Year’s Eve? We were here. Five Wednesday’s ago? Here. While some of the stories listed here are scary things, some of them (like Congresswoman Giffords!) offer hope. It costs a great deal of money to combat disease and to conduct research. Treating illness isn’t free, either. But hope? That’s free. We hand it out every day at our front desk.
- We don’t like to keep beating this drum, but have you wondered how the Twins, Maria and Teresa, came to us? They were a gift from the World Pediatric Project.
When you look at the vision of World Pediatric Project, it seems pretty simple and noble: “Every child, regardless of geography, will have access to quality, critical care so that they can live full and productive lives.” They also declare, “Geography doesn’t have to be the reason a child lives or dies.”
Huzzah!
The World Pediatric Project is much more than just bringing kids to doctors; they send medical teams to Central America and the Caribbean to diagnose and treat sick children. They help develop local programs in these areas to improve the overall health of the children and to also train local physicians and nurses. In extremely critical cases, they partner children with doctors in the United States who are better equipped to meet their needs.
The Project started in 2001 when Richmonder Dr. Julian Metts went on a medical mission. While out of the country, he saw many children sick and dying simply because they didn’t have access to quality critical care. He partnered with the South Richmond Rotary Club to start International Hospital for Children. They merged with another non-profit last March and World Pediatric Project was officially on the books.
In addition to the educational work that they do, and programs bringing children like the twins to doctors in the U.S., they do things like this:
Children in many developing countries suffer from birth defects due to improper nutrition. In addition to providing education and dietary supplements for mothers, they started a program in Belize to correct clubfoot in disabled tots. Using a U.S. partner, they taught local doctors how to use a series of corrective casts to improve the comfort and mobility in these children.
WPP helped to fund and build a NICU unit in St. Vincent. Nurses and partners from Children’s Hospital of Richmond taught local nurses how to use the donated equipment and how to meet the critical needs of ill and preterm newborns.
Cardiologists from VCU and Children’s Hospital of Richmond have been travelling to the Dominican Republic for over 5 years to offer hands-on training to Dominican doctors in the diagnosis and prevention of heart diseases. Dr. Scott Gullquist, leader of the project, says that he can see a drop in the mortality of children with these conditions.
More than 100 medical professionals volunteer to offer their services every year. The good news is that they have more volunteers than they have the finances to send out into the world. The bad news is that they have more volunteers than they have the finances to send out into the world.
So how can we continue to help World Pediatric Project?
First of all, we are like World Pediatric Project, and many of the other non-profit organizations that strive to help those in need: We need money. Crisis and illness never go on vacation, and that keeps us open 24/7/365. There are numerous ways for you to help, both large and small. Whether a one time gift or an on-going contribution, you can explore the many options here.
You might be able to get your work gang together (like BB & T or Spotts Fain) to volunteer here at the house for a meal or a one-time project. Many employers will also match donations, so check and see if your company will match any donations that you make to us.
You can also organize your group or organization (like Hanover Youth Service!) to host a party, a team, or event to help raise funds for HHH. 
Any way that you look at it, the World Pediatric Project is doing some great work. We would love to see them continue to grow and thrive. We hope that they are able to continue to help wonderful children like Maria and Teresa, and perhaps be in a position to one day broaden their reach to be truly global. One thing is for sure: We’re proud to have played a part in their equation of good, and we’ll continue to be here to help.
There is a condition, called prosopagnosia, where people can’t recognize faces. They see eyes, noses, and hair, but can’t process them into features that make a person familiar. When you think about someone that you know, what makes him or her familiar to you? Is it the color of their hair? Is it the fact that they were tall? Is it perhaps the way that they tell a joke or their exceptional skill at cooking chicken?
This defining characteristic isn’t who they are, though; it’s just something about them.
Person: (per-suhn) noun: a human being, whether a man, woman, or child as distinguished from an animal or a thing.
Did you notice that the definition doesn’t mention a cancer, or a bad heart, or an accident?
A distinguishing characteristic for our guests is that they’re in medical crisis. That ties them all together. The people that we meet have diseases, are dealing with surgeries, are recovering from treatments, and are sometimes quite remarkable.
But we don’t remember them by their condition, though.
We remember our guests because of the remarkable people that they are. We remember them because of their stories, and because of their sharing, and because they are people.
What do we remember about the twins? We remember the laughter and giggling as they played. We can still hear it ringing in the rooms where they did what little girls do. We can hear it every time we look back at a picture of their smiling faces.
What do we remember about Margaret and her portable heart? We remember the story about the one that got away. Margaret went fly-fishing while she was waiting for her new heart, because that’s what people like Margaret do.
Our guests laugh just like other people, and they eat just like other people, and they sleep just like other people. The things that brought them here are just a characteristic, like having red hair, or having an accent, or being left handed. It doesn’t define who they are. It’s just something else to know about them.
This might be good advice for many of us. Life can be challenging. We’re dealing with a poor economy, we’re fearful for the health of our planet, and there are still wars and unrest around the world. There are things in our daily lives that put up obstacles for us.
But these daily challenges don’t define us; they’re just something for us to deal with. Just a characteristic. Like having red hair or being left handed.
What do we see when we walk around the Hospital Hospitality House of Richmond? We see people.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow.”
-Albert Einstein
We’re hoping that everyone had a wonderful Holiday and spent some time with friends and family. Perhaps you ate too much? Did you get the gift that you wanted? Did you ring in the New Year properly?
As we look back at 2011, we realize that we certainly learned some things. As we start to dig in to 2012, we have some wishes, but they may come at a price. A price that we might be willing to pay.
Scientists are reporting break-throughs in stem cell therapy. They have begun a sort of human trial using a patient with the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s to see if they can create neurons that will stop or ease the degenerative effects of the disease. Imagine the promise that this would mean to millions, like Pat Summit, the record-setting coach of the University of Tennessee.
They’ve also seen progress in using stem cell therapy to thwart heart disease. A team from Cedars-Sinai was able to reverse heart damage in a group of patients who were suffering from failure.
The price that we would pay would be missing the joy of meeting Margaret. She was the delightful lady walking around with the Freedom Driver, the wearable heart machine.
In a surgery that was almost certainly a death sentence in the past, our twins (and we feel like they were ours!) Maria and Teresa were separated. VCU now has the procedure under its belt, the entire school, it seems, played a part, and VCU added to a stellar reputation. We hope that the success of the hospital and the relationship with The World Pediatric Project will give us the opportunity to serve some other deserving children in the future.
Did you know that at almost the exact same time “our twins” were being helped there was another set of twins, Angelina and Angelica, who were separated in California? Perhaps surgeries like this will become more commonplace. While Maria and Teresa were from the Dominican Republic and the California twins were from the Philippines, perhaps these surgeries are a signal that children in medical crisis will no longer have to be ferried halfway across the world to seek medical treatment.
It would be nice but we so loved our time with the girls.
You probably know that we’re into social media. We use Facebook and twitter to share news and events. It gives us a more immediate outlet to keep our family connected, involved, and to give shout-outs to the volunteers that help to keep our train running. Facebook is now helping to connect people in need.
April Paschke, a spokeswoman for the United Network for Organ Sharing, says that more and more people are connecting through social media for solving a medical crisis. People used Facebook, twitter, and e-commerce sites like Craig’s List this past year to send out the call for organ donations, and it worked! In 2010, 16,800 people were the recipient of a new kidney. Over 90,000 are on the waiting list.
By sharing their story through social media, these people were able to reach out to friends and family who in turn shared it with friends and family. This put them on a much larger list than the average organ-donor site, and each of these people were connected in a much larger way. There are no official numbers yet on how many people have found a donor directly through this new media, but it is very exciting.
If Cojo would’ve had this outlet a few years ago would we still have found an opportunity to wear our fancy hats?
We certainly have some resolutions for our New Year. We resolve to better serve the guests who spend time with us. We resolve to be more compassionate to their situations and more responsive to their needs. We resolve to be more appreciative of the hundreds of volunteers who give thousands of hours of their personal time.
The costs for our wishes? We could probably pay that price.
We spend a great deal of time saying Thank You to all of the wonderful people who volunteer for us here at The House. We’re also very thankful to have the opportunity to help so many people in their time of need. Every once in a while, some of those folks thank us!
Here is a sample of some of the notes that we’ve received:
“My stay in the hospital each time has been easier because you take care of my family. Because of you I can rest, knowing that my family has a wonderful place to stay.” Denise B.
“Our precious daughter had stage 4 breast cancer and went home to be with the Lord, but not before she delivered our precious grandson. He was born at 31 weeks and remains in the NICU at MCV but is doing very well. Thank you for providing such a wonderful service for patients and their families. We appreciate the part you had in making our stay wonderful.” Ron & Lori D. San Diego, California.
“My husband, Kenneth, had unexpected surgery and I was apprehensive about staying in a strange place alone. After Regina confirmed my reservations she helped me to be relaxed and completely at ease. “ McChell A.
“HHH is a place where miracles happen; the people I’ve met while staying here are against all odds. It’s a haven for the world.” Margaret D. First female patient at VCU to receive the Freedom Driver, a portable artificial heart.
“My husband was at MCV for 6 weeks following a catastrophic automobile accident. You made a terrible situation more bearable; from your warm smiles and welcome to your pleasant manner. We have been living a miracle, and each of you are a part of that.” Ruth G. Earlysville, Virginia.
“My daughter was a student when she was attacked and robbed. When I got the call, I was told that I would not make it to Richmond before she passed. I stayed at HHH with my adopted family for two months. You made my stay during this horrific ordeal easier. Without you, I don’t know how I would have made it through this period of my life.” Melanie W. Jarratt, Virginia.
We are very grateful to be able to reach out and provide for people during these times of crisis. The letters from our guests contain all of the tragedy and details of what brought them to us, and not all of their stories end happily. When we open the envelope and read, though, we smile warmly at the thought that we were able to be A Home Away From Home, and they will always be a part of our family.
What are the biggest decisions facing you this Holiday Season?
XBox or Wii?
Turkey or ham?
Where are we spending the Holidays? Your parents? My parents? Crazy Aunt Edna again?
For our guests at The House, these decisions are secondary.
Will I be healthy for New Years? Will I see a Christmas Tree? Will I see next Christmas?
People all over the world celebrate the Holidays in their own unique ways. Our guests come to us from all over the world, and each of them has their own unique story.
The House will be full this Holiday Season, just like every other day. Our guests, however, still deserve some Holiday Cheer!
We’re thankful that we have friends like the fine ladies of the NAWIC. They sent a special tweet to the North Pole and managed to get Santa Claus out of his workshop during his busiest time of the year. He agreed to accompany the NAWIC ladies on a House visit that brought some early cheer to some of our guests. That cheer goes a long way.
We also have wonderful friends like Ball Office Products. They know that we’re one of the oldest Hospitality Houses in the country, that we’re one of the oldest, blah blah blah. They also know that we’re the largest in the country that is funded solely through donations. Ball Office Products is a locally owned business. They like to make money. But they also understand the need to be connected to their community. That’s why they’ve been known to bring delicious, fresh cookies when they deliver products to their customers. They know that we’re in an old hotel, and that we have so many guests that we needed a place for folks to “check in” and get daily information. When you come into The House you’ll see a wonderful front desk and reception area. Where did that come from? Ball Office Products.
They’re stepping it up this Holiday Season.
Thing have been so busy around here that many of our needed supplies have become very depleted. Through the end of the year, if you “Like” Ball Office Products on Facebook they’ll donate something for our pantry. They’re in the office supply and furniture business, so they’ve got a couple of big trucks. They would love to fill one up for us. Just point and click. “Like”. See how easy that was?
It does take a nice chunk of change to keep us up and running for our guests. But it often takes more than that. We keep a wish list of items that our guests constantly need. Did you ever go on vacation and realize that you’ve forgotten your toothbrush? Happens to our guests all the time. They probably packed in a much bigger hurry for their visit than you did for your vacation.
We also want our guests to have as many of the comforts of home as possible. That means cooking for themselves when they’re hungry, and having their favorite comfy clothes for resting. This means that in addition to food items for the pantry, we are always in need of personal toiletries, like toothpaste, dish detergents, and laundry supplies. We’d like to point out: EVERYONE at the house likes to take advantage of our laundry rooms!
Please keep in mind that our guests have come to us because they are sick. Many of our guests are in chemotherapy or are transplant patients, so no crazy dyes or scents. Just good, old-fashioned detergents.
Most of all, think about us this Holiday Season. When you’re setting up your new gaming station, we’ll be here. While your polishing off the last bit of eggnog, we’ll be here. When you’re heading over the river and through the woods to get your ugly sweater from Crazy Aunt Edna, many of our guests will be on the shuttle bus going back to the hospital.
Perhaps we can add something to your Christmas list: Help The House.
We kept a really big secret for a long time and when it came out it hit big. Like “international” big.
The surgery to separate Maria and Teresa was huge from a couple of standpoints:
- It was only a few years ago that this type of surgery was considered so risky that many doctors and parents opposed it. A huge team of doctors and specialists was required to pull it off. They used some amazing technology to perform the surgery. It was a first for VCU.
We were proud to have played a part in this story, but we see this sort of thing all the time.
One of our recent guests was with us while waiting for a heart transplant. That in itself is pretty cool. The heart is a pretty important and complicated organ and it’s amazing to us that they can take yours out and plug a new one in. But it gets crazier.
At some point a diseased or weakened heart is going to want to throw in the towel. When that happens they hook you up to a “bypass” machine that pumps for you. The nickname around some parts for the machine is “Big Blue” because it’s huge and it weighs a ton. You could move around with it, but only as far as you could push it. It was like taking a stroll with a Volkswagen chained to your chest.
Artificial hearts have been around for a while, but they’re still a bridge to a transplant. A new technology is rising, though, that will let folks get rid of Big Blue and get some quality of life while awaiting a transplant.
This guest had something called a Freedom Driver. It was still cabled and tubed to her chest, but she could carry it. In a backpack. She was at the House for a while waiting for a donor heart, but one day she got bored and went to visit some friends. In Waynesboro. That’s about a hundred miles west of here.
Oh, and she went fly-fishing.
(Can’t help but share this tidbit: Do you know who has the first patent for a mechanical artificial heart? Paul Winchell. You probably don’t know his name but you probably know his voice. He was better known as a ventriloquist and was the voice of Tigger in the original Winnie the Pooh movies. Who knew?)
Some of our guests aren’t amazing because of a groundbreaking procedure or because of an innovative technology. Some are just amazing because of who they are and what they’ve been through.
Just last week, we said goodbye to a lovely little girl and her mother. Doctors at VCU had worked to reconstruct the little girl’s leg. Every week or so we’d see them in the kitchen or playing games and notice a different colored cast. “New cast! Maybe this will be the last one?”
After 7 months, we saw the last cast and helped them to pack up. They were going to be home for Christmas. And they were going much farther than Waynesboro. Their home was in Belize. That’s in Central America.
We hope that by Christmas Day she’ll be bounding like Tigger. Perhaps she’ll be able to come back and visit? Until then, Ta Ta For Now!
We got a little free publicity over the Thanksgiving weekend. We don’t know if you saw it but the Richmond Times-Dispatch featured us in an article on the 24th.
Kristen Green wrote a very nice piece about us and the article featured some of our guests. She spoke to Luiz Filho, who is staying with us following a near-fatal heart attack. He has had an artificial heart and a full heart transplant. He has had the benefit of family, even though his heart attack occurred 2,800 miles away from his Los Angeles home. He was able to bring his wife and daughter to Richmond while doctors worked to improve his life.
Kristen also mentioned the twins, (recovering nicely from the surgery to separate them!) Maria and Teresa, who were guests from the Dominican Republic.
Not everyone is from so far away. Carol Hackett is from Virginia Beach. She is one of our repeat guests. She originally came to us during cancer treatment and stays whenever she’s in town for follow-up visits. She has also become a kind of ambassador for us, reaching out to fellow guests, like Jimmy Hendricks. Jimmy’s wife, Reda, is getting ready for a bone marrow transplant. Jimmy and Reda are here from the Shenandoah Valley. Carol helped to make sure that Jimmy was comfortable and was getting acclimated at The House.
Our volunteers bend over backwards to make sure that The Hospital Hospitality House of Richmond stays true to our motto of “A Place to Call Home.” As one of the largest such Houses in the United States, we do that for over 7,000 guests per year. While our doors are always open, our rooms stay pretty full. We’re lucky to have the staff that we do, to have caring groups like the Junior League who show up to cook and hang out with our guests, and to have guests like Carol who have benefited from The House and are so quick to play a part in treating our guests like family.
We only have about 30 people actually on our staff, but last year our volunteers donated over 12,000 hours to help us keep things humming. We “charge” $15 per day for folks to stay here, but we don’t turn people away over cost. Donations from individuals, groups, and from events like SAVOR help us to keep our doors open to everyone. We have to go shopping just like everyone else, but folks visit our wish list and frequently donate goods and items so that our guests can dine, do laundry, read, and play games.
Having the twins was a real treat for us and we’ve loved the fact that we were able to contribute to such an amazing project. A special thank you to Kristen Green and The Richmond Times-Dispatch for the follow-up and for helping us to spread our story! A little free publicity can go a long way!
We’ve been saying some Thank You’s recently: our Veterans and Active Service Members, The Children’s Hospital of Richmond, and our Volunteers among others. We thought that for Thanksgiving we’d run through a laundry list of why we’re thankful.
Yes, the Children’s Hospital of Richmond, VCU Medical, and World Pediatric Project. We thank them for introducing us (and the world!) to Teresa and Maria Sanatis and their family. The story of the twins is really inspirational and we’re fortunate to have had the chance to meet them and to contribute.
Chef Roland Mesnier for helping to create our wonderful meal at this year’s Savor Event, all of the people who joined us and contributed, and Wolfgang Jasper for his amazing photos of the evening. The Country Club of Virginia was a wonderful venue, we look forward to this every year and we can’t wait until next year.
The wonderful friends at Gilbane, the restaurants who hosted, and everyone involved with the Gilbane Restaurant Walk. $25,000 goes a long way at the Hospitality House!
Volunteer of the Year, Lisa Schaffner, guest host Steven Cojocaru, and everyone who donned a silly chapeau for this years Fancy Hat Party. Aside from the inspiration, good food, and great music, it is a really fun evening for a wonderful reason.
Everyone who cooked, served, called bingo, set up, or cleaned up after our guests. You know who you are, but here goes a partial list: Church of Our Savior, Junior League of Richmond, BB&T (potatoes!), Bethlehem Lutheran Church, The Mothers Club, Spotts Fain, NAWIC, Hanover Youth Service, Donlora Womans Club (it’s never a bad time for soup!), Girl Scout Brownie Troop 488, Community Health and Wellness Network at VCU, the Association of Legal Administrators, and Alpha Psi Alpha. We know that we’ve left a million people out, just know that we appreciate what you do.
Marlon Bowers for sharing your art while you stayed with us. You still created while enduring a difficult time. And congratulations for being featured at The Gallery at UNOS!
All of the people who came to lift spirits, like Offering, Susan Greenbaum, The Richmond Flying Squirrels and Nutzy, and The Gentlemen of Kappa Alpha Psi.
Finally, thank you to all of our guests. You give us hope and inspiration and a reason for being here. It is a gift and a treasure to be able to serve you. Some of you have become friends, some of you are like our family, and we’re forever grateful to have you call our home yours for however long that you’re with us.
Happy Thanksgiving
