I am the volunteer of the Brightening Team and we work for new breast cancer patients. One day I received a call from the hospital saying that a patient was emotionally unstable and too weak for chemotherapy. Therefore I rushed back to the hospital immediately and I saw a depressed and weak lady. I tried to open up dialogue with her, but she was not ready to talk until after some time. Then I found out that she felt very guilty of her mother's death, and therefore she was unable to eat and sleep properly and became weaker and weaker. I then used other real life examples from our peer group to encourage her and let her cried on my shoulder. She felt much relieved afterwards and I told her to go home and rest to gain the strength for the next round of chemotherapy.

A few months later I saw her coming in to the rehab shop with her husband. She happily told me that this is her last shot and she wanted to say thank you to me. I suddenly remembered how I managed to come back to life from all the deep pain, and how grateful I was to all the doctors and social workers who had helped me during those times. Being able to help ourselves while helping others is probably the greatest joy of being a volunteer!