Clowning and children: a collection of stories

Karen McCarty, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Healthy Humor, Inc. tells two memorable stories about clowns' experiences with children in hospitals. 

I was walking down the hospital corridor with a piece of toilet paper intentionally stuck to my clown shoe.   
“Dr. Ginger Snaps!”  Ellen’s voice was riddled with urgency as she grabbed me out of the hallway and into an alcove.  She held me firm as she looked at me directly through her tear, glazed eyes, “Tim is going down to have his leg amputated in about 30 minutes.  He can’t see me like this!  Please can you be with him while I pull myself together?!” 

My stomach churned.  My chest tightened.  I took my clown nose off to breath a bit better. 

 “Please.” She implored clutching my arm like she was falling off a cliff. 
 I nodded in affirmation.  But I felt paralyzed, scared and trapped by her desperation.  And I definitely didn’t feel funny.

I peered in through the doorway and Tim was sitting on his bed like Buddha.  He looked at me with his old soul crammed into a seven year old body and said, “ Come in. I want to ask you something.”  I cautiously tip toed towards him consumed with dread. I stood next to his bed, and unsmiling, waited, breathlessly for his next move.  He slipped his little hand around my fingers and whispered, “Do I have to go through with this?”  We looked at each other, both of us hoping and groping for an answer that would change everything.  Finally, I gave up.

“Yes.  It’s for the best Tim.” 

He nodded. He nodded with the kind of mature resignation that a 40 year-old man does when he is given the American flag in exchange for his 21 year-old son killed at war. 

I couldn’t bear it.  I couldn’t bear his courage.

Without even knowing what I was saying, I blurted, “But we can do whatever you want for the next 5 minutes!”
He lifted his face and the middle-aged man had become a boy again.  His eyes twinkled with surprise and wonder. Our world was now alive with possibilities and we both chuckled like two little devils dancing at the gates of hell.
         
“OK”, he said with a puckish grin, “I want to jump on the bed!” 
I looked at him for a second confused, not getting it at first. 
Of course, I thought, he’s going to loose his leg! Of course he wants to jump on the bed!

“You got it buddy! Jump away!”  Tim started jumping on his bed and after cheering him on for a bit, I got up on the other bed in the room and started jumping. We were breaking the rules and loving it!  We were screaming and laughing so hard at one point that his Mom came in to see what was going on.  She couldn’t help herself. Our laughter was obviously contagious.
We were all totally cognizant of what was about to happen.  There was no denial involved.  We just chose to surrender to joy instead of fear.

When they came with the gurney, Tim didn’t resist.  He calmly stopped jumping and got on the gurney.  I was so moved by his almost polite compliance, that I gave him my squirt gun to use at will on our way down to surgery.  He took full advantage of my offering. 
Tim, sitting up on his gurney, got an unsuspecting intern out in the hall as our elevator doors were closing.  We all had a good laugh as the young doctor helplessly wiped the water off his shocked face. 

Down in surgery holding, we made the anesthesiologist, his Mom, his surgeon and several nurses line up like ducks in a rotating shooting gallery.  That was fun. As Tim was being wheeled into surgery, he propped himself up on one arm and yelled, “Hey, Dr. Ginger Snaps.”  “Yes, Tim.”  “You have toilet paper stuck to your shoe.”,he said with a twinkle in his eye knowing full well that I had put it there.”  “How silly of me…what would I do without you!”
 
Eventually I would have to answer that question. This is what I’ve learned.  I’ve learned that moments like these never leave you.  They are too powerful; too full to ever completely digest.  That life is finite for all of us, and it is our task to find the joy in the journey.

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This was one of those days where on the floor our census was teenagers with sad stories – one gunshot wound, one stabbed by a friend.  This trend continued in the ED, where Ivana informed us that there was a 14 year old girl, being held for suicidal tendencies.  She had fought with her mother, so there was no parental figure with her.  All credit to Ivana, that she trusts us enough to let us try. 

When she saw us, her hands flew up to her face.  “Are you shy?”, Maria asked “Yes,”, her voice was muffled behind her hands.  “I’m shy, too,” Moo said, and covered her face.  A bit of a smile emerged.  “I am shy, but I have to say, I LOVE you hair.”  She had a layered purple hairdo.  She smiled.  ‘OOOOOH, “ said Moo.  “So you know about fashion and stuff?”  “Yes, “ said our patient, now fully looking at us, and smiling.  I began to ask for advice on what she thought of my hairdressing abilities.  I pulled up my backgrounds of weird hairdos for her to judge – Moo gave me low marks, but M, our patient was much more generous, which only made Moo angry, and go into her “high drama” – which is like watching a silent Novella!! 

I showed more hairdos – and again, M showed me more generosity than Moo, which again made her angry.  In the end, M told me that I had a future in hairdressing.  This seemed to change Moo’s mind about me, so she said that I could do her hair.  I pulled out my giant scissors, and Moo put her face close to the camera, and with a little snip here and there, Maria put on a filter that gave her a WILD hairdo.  M approved of the job, and we clowns left happy.  It was just another example – and I never get tired of it – of when the most unlikely of all patients becomes so joyful and playful – even one who was considering suicide.    ​