5th, 6th and 7th Floor's

At the Vietnamese childrens hospital I am a visitor for the children who are patients on the fifth, sixth and seventh floor's which described as numbers alone puts no context around the children that I have been spending my time with and getting to know, yet I can't get the images of these children out of my mind. To try and give you an understanding of what I mean let me explain; the fifth floor is for children who have kidney problems, the sixth floor is for children who need blood transfusions for varying reasons and the seventh floor is for children who have cancer.

If you were to meet these children you would see immediately that they are upbeat and happy to be colouring, painting and playing games with the other children - their fellow patients and the volunteers at the hospital to keep them entertained and pre occupied from thinking about their health problems, but then when you look a little deeper you would see that on the fifth floor the children have catheters on their tiny little wrists, on the sixth floor the children are tricked/coerced into being sat in one place due to blood being pumped into their little bodies and on the sixth floor the children have little or no hair because it has fallen out due to treatment they are receiving to battle cancer; all of the children are aged or 10 under.

I am lost for words and cannot think of any that can describe how I felt when I met the children or how I feel about their situations now. I will tell you though that the first thought that came to my mind as soon as I walked out of the hospital was that a part of me had decided that I could not go back because it was to upsetting. I have however, decided that not going back is not an option and in fact now want to spend as much time as possible with these children who can only be described as beautiful in every way, full of giggles, smiles, fun, mischief and everything that a child should be despite the ill health they have to deal with.

I am upset to see the pain these children are suffering from and I am so very sad to think that some of them won't make it to their adulthood but most of all I am upset and angry because it is without cause or reason that these children are suffering, this makes no sense to me at all. None of my upset, anger or frustration to not be able to do more takes away from the fact that I feel priviledged to be able to spend time with these children.