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Showing her appreciation
When Peggy Wood's husband, Harry Joyce, died of cancer in 1981, the Cancer Center was basically three infusion chairs in a dark corridor of Medical Center North. "It was little and dark, but they cared," said Wood.
She saw such dedication there that she and her family became involved with the Cancer Clinic, which is dedicated to the staff for their care and dedication to meeting the needs of patients. Her
interest has helped with faculty recruitment and training of the next generation of scientists. Wood is also a member of the Clinic Expansion Advisory Committee, which has provided input on the design of the ongoing renovation and expansion of the clinic. She has served for many years as a volunteer on the Cancer Center's Board of Overseers, and is now an emeritus member.
But Wood's dedication to the Cancer Center doesn't end with committee meetings. She's at the Cancer Clinic every Tuesday morning, pushing the refreshment cart and talking to patients and their families if they want to talk. She hands out pillows if they need them, and gets them something to read if they need reading material. If a patient has to bring a child with them to the infusion area, she gets crayons and a coloring book to help keep the child occupied. "I just love and enjoy the patients and enjoy helping make them more comfortable," she says. "I get a great deal of satisfaction going down there and doing what I can."
Wood says she believes the community is fortunate to have a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center at its own back door.
"We are so fortunate to have this cancer center here. We don't have to take an airplane and stay in a hotel to get excellent care. People can stay in their own homes with their own support systems. That's important."
Grief didn't keep her away
Nancy Webb and cancer are not strangers. She lost her 21-year-old son, Vann, nearly four years ago to cancer.
"Our second home was Vanderbilt. It became like family to us. He felt comfortable there, and we did too," she said.
Webb said she waited a while after her son's death to volunteer. "I had to wait long enough, just to get through a certain grieving process," she said. "Time went by, and I felt like I wanted to give back because of how Vanderbilt helped us."
So beginning this past fall, Webb began volunteering at lunchtime on Mondays. She hands out refreshments, but is also there if patients want to talk. "I feel like in some ways it's easier for me than for someone who hasn't been through the cancer experience," she said. "I'm not shocked when I see people who are really sick while they're in the infusion area. It doesn't faze me. I've lived it."
Webb said she's established relationships with patients who have their regular visits on Mondays.
"I see a lot of the same people week after week. There's one couple who drives in from somewhere outside the Nashville area. I was sick one Monday, had a cold, and the Cancer Center was the last place I needed to be. I didn't want to get any of the patients sick. But when I came in the next week, they told me they had missed me. That meant a lot to me."
A four-legged volunteer
The Vanderbilt-Ingram volunteer makes her way cautiously into a patient's infusion room. She sits down slowly by the patient, not making a sound, a welcome diversion from the cancer-killing chemicals that pour into the patient's body. The patient smiles. The volunteer wags her tail.
QBert is a 12-year-old golden retriever who has been a certified therapy dog for the past 11 years. She has been volunteering at the Cancer Clinic with her owner, Sarah-Jane Mitchell, almost every Wednesday for the past eight years. QBert wears a green vest, identifying her as a therapy dog. A message on the vest reads, "Ask to pet me. I'm friendly."
Mitchell takes QBert room to room on a leash, asking before she enters if the patient wants a visit. Most do. "It's such a hopeful place to come," Mitchell says.
QBert has reddish fur and a snout that is mostly gray. She's clean and neatly trimmed. She sits quietly once she enters an infusion room, or if she feels like the patient wants her to, she will lie on the floor near the infusion chair. She runs only once during a recent two-hour stay at the clinic – making a beeline toward the nurse's station where her favorite nurse, Linda Bates (favorite only because she is the keeper of the dog treats) greets her with squeals. "I love you. I love you," Bates says. "Let me rub your belly because I don't have any
biscuits today." QBert, named for a 1980s Atari game, willingly accepts the belly rub.
"QBert loves people," Mitchell says. "She's never met a stranger. Everywhere we go, we see somebody we know. Once we were hiking in East Tennessee, and someone came around the corner and said, 'there's QBert.' My husband just couldn't believe it."
Mitchell says that she tries to avoid discussing the patient's illness when she and QBert visit the infusion area. "I don't mind talking about it, but if people don't want to, we don't. It's none of my business why they're here. We mostly just talk about their pets.
"I remember one patient who didn't know anybody when she came here from out of state," Mitchell says. "She said when QBert stuck her head around the door, she felt like she had come to the right place, that any place that had a pet therapy program was a good spot for her," Mitchell recalls. "I think that QBert is primarily a diversion for patients here, a good opportunity to think about something else. She also probably brings a touch of home and helps bring some happiness here. But I know I've gained way more than I've given."
Warm quilts for cold times
Janice Slaughter (pronounced Ja-neese) started making quilts soon after she retired from teaching English in Hendersonville. She made one for each member of her family, made them a second one, started making them for friends of friends, then turned her focus to church members at Good Shepherd United Methodist Church who had cancer, and family members of church members with cancer.
A friend suggested she call Vanderbilt, and Slaughter contacted Greg Martin at Vanderbilt-Ingram's Patient and Family Support Services, who enthusiastically welcomed her donation of several brightly colored lap-size quilts and small teddy bears that she also makes. To date, she's donated 15 of her quilts – each takes 40 to 60 hours of hand and sewing machine work and costs about $50-$75 to make. Each is unique, although a few have had a pink ribbon fabric to give to patients with breast cancer.
Some of the materials have been donated. She has been given leftover fabric scraps from a mother who was making a dress for her daughter, and fabric from sewing friends who have died. "There's an awareness out there that 'Janice uses anything' and people can pass it on if they're cleaning out their house and find some fabric, batting or spools of thread," she says.
Slaughter has received handwritten thank-you notes from some of Vanderbilt-Ingram's patients who have received her quilts. "One woman wrote me and said she understood the work involved because her mother quilted. She said she understood the value, the work, the purpose. She said she'd treasure it."
The quilts are made of 100 percent cotton and are intended for heavy use, not to be put in a closet and saved for someone, Slaughter says. "One of my quilts is like Linus' blanket. It's something that people can hang onto because it's small. If it gets stained, that's good. That means they're using it, loving it, it's theirs." 
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