Com.pen.sa.tion--The money received by an employee from an employer as a salary or wages.
I have now been volunteering in the neonatal intensive-care unit of a local hospital for a little over two months. I don't get there as often as I would like, but I have spent many quality hours in the NICU.
What I have done is somewhat different than what I thought I had signed up to do. I thought I had gone through the approval and orientation process to hold newborn babies. After all, the program I responded to is the "Cuddler Program". As it turns out, they don't always need me to cuddle or feed babies. Many times they just need me to answer the phone or answer the door. Sometimes, like today, all of the babies were in isolation or parents and family members were there. Can you imagine this scenario? "Excuse me mom, there is a volunteer who has driven twenty miles to hold your baby, Would you mind letting him hold her for a while?" "Sure. I'd be glad to. Thank you for your service."
This morning, because there were no babies available to hold and there was a tech answering the phone, there was nothing for me to do. And I just left. So was it a wasted trip? Not at all. The charge nurse has told me I can call before I come, but since the situation in the NICU changes minute by minute, it's worth the drive for me just to show up and find out.
Being associated with the NICU in any capacity has altered my perception of reality. Until two months ago, when I woke up in the middle of the night I was only aware that there were six Waffle Houses within ten miles of my house and that I could get dressed and get a waffle and a bottomless cup of coffee at any of them. Now when I wake up at 1:23 or 2:46 or 4:16 before I think about the Waffle House, I think "There are distressed babies in the NICU being cared for by a loving and dedicated staff of people right now. Those lights are blinking and the monitors are beeping on the machines that are keeping those babies alive. The doctors, nurses and technicians are attending to each one of them according to their unique needs and situation. I could get up, put on my volunteer garb, drive to the hospital and maybe help out." Then I think, "And I could stop and get a waffle on the way home." I haven't done this yet, but I will.
All of these babies are in the NICU because they are distressed. Not all of them are sick; but some are. Not all of them were born addicted; but some were. Most of them are born premature and need some extra help getting started. And let me tell you, the help they get is extraordinary. The first NICU in the United States was opened in 1965 at the Yale-New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut. Can you imagine how very lucky that first distressed baby and her family were for her to wake up in a unit equipped just for her? There are now well over 1000 neonatal ICUs in the United States. Multiply a thousand times how many babies over fifty-one years to imagine the immeasurable impact of these remarkable hospital wards. How many tens of thousands of people are walking, talking and loving their children and grandchildren because of a NICU?
Of all the definitions I read of "compensation" none of them begin to approach what I get paid as a volunteer in this hospital. Yes, I quite often get to cuddle and feed distressed newborn babies. And when I do. Well, let's just say at that moment nothing else matters to me in the universe. There is nowhere else I want to be and nothing else I want to be doing. And I am at perfect peace. Nobody has to pay me. I'm paid in full.
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