Every Friday, Marlo Burkey catches the 7:25 a.m. fast ferry from her home in Bremerton to Seattle. Her daughter, Kalisa Owens, waits for her at the dock with coffee and half a bagel to eat during the ride to Fred Hutch Cancer Center, where they volunteer at the gift shop.
She and Owens get to know their customers, many of whom are repeat visitors.
“If people have 45 minutes between a blood draw and a doctor’s appointment, they come here,” said Burkey, a retired human resources professional.
One 20-something would come in every week to update them on his treatment progress. When he finished treatment, he came to the gift shop to celebrate.
"We rehashed all he had gone through and how proud he should be and how he had gained weight and got his color back,” said Burkey.
The gift shop is many things to many people. For some patients, it functions as a convenience store where they can buy ice packs or ibuprofen or maybe a jaunty cap to cover their chemo-related hair loss. For visitors, it’s a place to purchase a gift — pretty earrings or classy stationery — before paying a friend a visit.
Owens, a yoga instructor, has been volunteering since 2014, seven years after being diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 30.
“I was married in October and diagnosed in May,” she said. “It was really a study in for better or for worse.”
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Owens lived on the East Coast at the time of her diagnosis but now receives her follow-up care at Fred Hutch. She started off by volunteering at the front desk of the clinic and transitioned to the gift shop once she was able to persuade her mother to join her.
“We’re shoppers,” Owens said. “We always talk about the gift shop as being patients’ retail therapy appointment: Come in for a blood draw, walk out with a spatula.”
Fred Hutch employees do all the buying for the meticulously curated shop, but Burkey and Owens offer guidance based on customer feedback.
“Someone asked for fun kid stickers and now we have them,” said Burkey, pointing out a collection. “If you hear a request once, it sounds like a good idea. Two cements it.”
Owens’ experience as a patient and Burkey’s experience as her caregiver help them relate to their customers. They manage far more than the cash register; they also manage customers’ emotions.
"Sometimes we can tell that they need to hear that there is another side, that there is life after cancer,” said Owens.
But they are careful about getting overly personal.
"You just have to read people,” Owens said. “I start off cheerful, and if I can tell they got difficult news, I tone things down. I ask open-ended questions and see where it goes. Sometimes you get their whole story.”
Burkey piped up. “And sometimes you get grumpy! That’s alright. You can be anything you want when you come here.”
Interested in helping out? Sign Up to Become a Volunteer.
Bonnie Rochman is a staff writer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. A former health and parenting writer for Time, she has written a popular science book about genetics, "The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids—and the Kids We Have." Reach her at brochman@fredhutch.org.
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Are you interested in reprinting or republishing this story? Be our guest! We want to help connect people with the information they need. We just ask that you link back to the original article, preserve the author’s byline and refrain from making edits that alter the original context. Questions? Email us at communications@fredhutch.org
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