Sitting in the busy emergency ward, I was ravenously hungry. But having just got off a Royal Flying Doctor Service flight with my son Korbyn, then four, I was more worried about his snakebite than my tummy.
Without a cent on me, I was too embarrassed to ask anyone in Rockhampton Hospital for money. And I was just relieved Korbyn was all right.
Back home in Biloela, a Central Queensland town about 145 kilometres from Rockhampton, I thought about all the people from rural towns who were rushed to hospital without anything they needed.
When we moved to Brisbane soon after, in November 2012, my friend Mary-Ann's two-year-old son Ryan was hospitalised with a brain tumour.
From Biloela, nearly 600 kilometres from Brissie, Mary-Ann was staying in accommodation near the hospital for families of kids in the cancer unit.
Quickly I realised so many of these families were from rural towns. Like Mary-Ann, they were stuck in accommodation far from home. Some didn't even have buses in their towns, so didn't know how to use public transport or couldn't afford it.
So I started cooking batches of food at home and dropping them off to the families.
Thank you so much!' they said, grateful.
'It's the least I can do,' I smiled.
If they needed clothes or toiletries, I gave them a lift to the shops or went for them.
I was so busy cooking and running errands, I enlisted two lovely volunteers to help.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2022-Ausgabe von That's Life Magazines.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der September 2022-Ausgabe von That's Life Magazines.
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