Taylor - Blog #8

Today, I attended my first photo shoot, which was at Akron Children’s Hospital. Jessica and I met Jen Greulich, the Chapter Co-Director, a volunteer whose name I can’t remember (oops), and the photographer, Dr. LeRoy Dierker at the hospital at 9:30 this morning. The photo shoot took place in one of the small family waiting areas in the Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders. Jen told us that 5 patients had signed up to be photographed, however, the numbers always end up changing due to how the patients are feeling the day of the shoot. Since there were only a few patients signed up, the child life specialist for the Akron chapter, who was also present at the shoot, went around the clinic and visited patients to inform them that Flashes services were available. After she did this, more and more patients and their families came to get photographed. Luckily, all of the parents/guardians of the photographed patients gave me permission to take some behind-the-scenes photographs of the photo shoot and their children.

For the most part, the patients that were photographed seemed happy and excited to participate. There were two patients that were unable to leave their room for various reasons, so the photographer, Jen, Jessica and I accommodated these patients, and photographed them in their hospital rooms. One of those two patients, a 2-year old named Payton, was in an isolated zone room, which is a room that is carefully sterilized for patients who are undergoing intense chemotherapy and consequently have an extremely weak immune system, so are subject to outside germs. So, when we visited Payton’s room, we had to wear special gowns, gloves, and masks to ensure that none of our germs would come in contact with Payton and her room. Of all the patients, Payton was probably the hardest to watch. The pain that she was in was very obvious, for she couldn’t get off of her couch or even smile or laugh without using a expending a lot of her energy.

Two of the nine patients photographed today were located in the Neonatal Intensive Care (NIC) department. Jessica and I were not allowed to go into the rooms of these patients, so we stayed with Jen while they were photographed. Jen explained that the patients located in the NIC were newborn babies with cancer who were extremely close, even days away, from dying. So, understandably, the parents were not as comfortable with the presence of outsiders like Jessica and me.

While the current situations of Payton and the two babies in the intensive care unit were very hard to see/hear, many of the other patients who were photographed today were noticeably courageous and extremely inspiring. For example, one of the patients was a 13-year old girl named Ashlee (in the photo). Ashlee, accompanied by her father, walked into the waiting room/photo shoot dragging her I.V. stand behind her. She enthusiastically said hi to everyone in the room and immediately cracked a joke about the fact that she had more hair (barely) than her bald father. When asked if she wanted to put on any makeup by one of the stylists, she responded, “Nope, I already look beautiful!” and laughed. Throughout her entire photo shoot, she continually changed poses, sometimes wearing her black fedora hat, while other times proudly showing off her practically bald head, laughing and smiling the entire time.