[January post] CTBE-corporate team bonding

The following rather sobering information should inspire the most fervent corporate team bonding zeal your colleagues have ever experienced: This New Year’s Eve, at the stroke of midnight, more than one million Americans will either begin or mark another leg in their journey as cancer patients. While most of us are making lists of resolutions, thousands of newly diagnosed souls will embark on the fight of their lifetimes, part of which will include a regimen of chemotherapy.

In fact more than 30 million Americans will be hospitalized for a variety of maladies over the course of the next year. For all the medical advancements that are made each year, replete with technological wizardry and uber-skilled caregivers, a hospital can be still feel like a pretty hostile, cold, and alien environment.  

The average length of a hospital stay is four days.  For cancer patients every second can feel like an eternity. But you can share their journey and make it feel less arduous. By participating in our Hospital Helpers Charity Workshop, you and your coworkers can launch a corporate team bonding campaign that will provide desperately needed comfort and support to cancer patients in your community who are dealing with chemo.

During our workshop, your team will have the opportunity to focus on someone else’s pain and work together to relieve some of it. Even the smallest gestures can minister kindness and healing.

For example, even though chemo can be an exhausting experience, many cancer patients experience difficulty relaxing and shutting out the world enough to rest. So the gift of an eye mask, a neck pillow, and some earplugs might help them insulate their minds from the busy-ness and chatter of the world around them so that they can drift off to sleep.

Nausea is a common reaction to chemotherapy. A box of organic peppermint tea should soothe away the nausea and settle the patient’s stomach. And when their appetite finally returns, a stash of organic chicken soup may prove to be just what the doctor ordered.

You might also include in your hospital care package some soothing oatmeal-based skin care products to restore the suppleness and luster of their skin; and replenish  their face, hands, and feet.

Flannel blankets, fleece pillow cases, booties and other snugglies can add a homey touch to their environment so the patient doesn’t feel like they and everything around them are the property of the hospital.

Even an adult coloring book could briefly take their minds off of the cancer and the chemo, and lighten their mood. And a colorful head scarf can boost their morale when it’s time to go home. Corporate team bonding is about learning how to care. It’s also a call to action. Will you and your colleagues answer this call?