The first Monday of June 2018 I was awaken by nature's call at thirty seven minutes after five A.M., according to the clock-radio beside our bed, but before I could seek relief I had to wait for Mary, my wife, who had unusually awaken earlier than I to vacate the bathroom. I would not normally stress the time of day I arise but the night before I had set our alarm to wake me with its' clamorous chimes at 5:45 AM. An ungodly hour for a retired couple, on the back side of seventy, with no where to go and nothing to do except visit the Oncology department at the Oshawa General Hospital. <br /> <br /> On that cold foggy day, a rarity in Southern Ontario for this time of year, we had to be in Oshawa before 8:00 AM for another of my wife's Nivolumab (NIVO) therapy treatments which have now been ongoing for longer than I care to remember. But I keep hoping, every time that I sit patiently by my wife's side that this radical immune therapy will work its' magic and help ease the constant pain that I see daily on her face and in her beautiful blue eyes.<br /> <br /> But I digress. To help pass the time during our therapy visits we take a portable scrabble game, Yahtzee dice/score sheets and a novel or two plus other reading material. On this day Mary took our June 2018 edition of Life Is Better Downhome and was reading it while reclining in the Oncology Chair with NIVO oozing into her blood stream at 130ml per hour. <br /> <br /> The Oshawa General Hospital, actually Lakeridge Health Center, like a majority of hospitals in Ontario has an untold number of volunteers who work tirelessly helping the professional staff in seeing to the needs of the unfortunates who have been stricken with cancer. It takes a special kind of person to serve as a volunteer on the Cancer Wards of our hospitals and seeing on a constant basis people with resignation and despair etched in their eyes and then having to put on a happy face, smile and say, &acirc;��can I get you a drink or something to eat?&acirc;�� Sometimes, but I would venture that these times are far and few between, they see hope in the patient's eyes and this gives some reason to why they volunteer. I have met a lot of volunteers in my travels across Canada and in healthier times I was one. In organizations such as the Lions Club and St. John Ambulance but never on the Cancer Ward of a hospital as I was unable to summon the fortitude so necessary to deal with despair at its' zenith. Over the past two years, while accompanying Mary to the many different hospitals she has been directed to in her endless battle against cancer, I have met a countless number of these special people called VOLUNTEER.<br /> <br /> On that first Monday of June 2018 while Mary was perusing the Downhomer a volunteer happened to walk by her chair. "Is that the Downhomer you're reading?" she said while doing a quick about-turn and looking directly at Mary, who stopped reading and with a quizzically look on her face, looked at the cover of the Downhomer and asked the volunteer "are you from down home" "Yes, I am!" was the reply and therein started a three way conversation between the volunteer, my wife and I which lasted well over a quarter of an hour. Life histories summarized, possible relatives, memories of home, missing Newfoundland and anxious to go home again and many other things talked about. If the duty nurse hadn't interrupted us to remove the needle from my wife's arm we may well still be there chatting. This is just one example of how a volunteer can change a dreary therapy session into a memorable 15 minutes. And all because of the "Life is better Downhome"magazine.   Submitted By: Randolph Toope