For bedder or for worse

Today Miriam officially became a mission runner, completing her mission number one, while Kash evolved into a mission beast, reaching a good deeds count of 666.

Kash remembered Mr A's and his wife's house, where she did grocery missions for the elderly couple, and later came with Sevan to relocate a bed to make space for Mr A's new hospital bed. Today, Kash returned with Miriam to complete the most challenging task for Mr A: swapping said hospital bed upstairs with the older gentleman's bed downstairs.

The good news was that Mr A's son, Dr S, was at his parents' house to orchestrate the operation and help move his dad onto the hospital bed. The bad news was that both beds to be swapped were occupied!

I don't think we can do the move today, said Dr S, coming to the living room on the ground floor from the bedroom upstairs. The tenant is sleeping.

Do you mean we will be too noisy? He is not sleeping in THE bed, right?

He is.

After that announcement, Mr A and his wife had an animated discussion with their son. Miriam and Kash didn't understand a thing from what was said, but they understood well what was going to happen next. Dr S went upstairs to negotiate with the tenant. He was successful.

Miriam and Kash apologised to the tenant for the disruption. He seemed reconciled with the situation and helped them move the mattress. That was the easy part. Miriam started taking off the headboard, and Kash started to think about the steps they needed to do to complete the task and whether there were any blockers. One blocker was a broken stair lift, stuck permanently at the top of the stairs. There was hardly any way around it. Dr S proved he was not only the brain but also the muscle. He helped the GoodGymers lift the bed above the stair lift and take it downstairs. To be frank, it was not a real hospital bed but it had features like a reclining mechanism, which made the bed extra heavy.

Another hoop was the mystery of how to fit the bed through the door to the living room. Mr A was getting anxious and even felt like cancelling the task at some point. Dr S convinced him that he and the GoodGymers knew what they were doing. After moving a few pictures and a heavy cabinet, it became possible to get the bed into the living room.

There was one more tricky thing to do: move Mr A from one bed to another. Kash noticed Mr A changed a lot since her previous visits. After coming back from the hospital, he seemed much smaller and frail. The team needed a way to move him gently from one bed to another without a hoist and avoid putting him into a wheelchair. Dr S decided to slide him, together with his current bedsheet, onto the new bed. It was very smooth and Mr A did not suffer discomfort.

After dealing with the heavy hospital bed, moving Mr A's old bed upstairs felt like a breeze - it was super light! The GoodGymers slid the new bed with Mr A towards the wall and the seemingly difficult task was completed in less than an hour!

The grateful family offered the GoodGymers soft drinks and introduced them to Dr S's eight-year-old son, who was in the house and wanted to know the names of the nice volunteers he saw in action.

Miriam did amazingly on her first mission, showing a positive attitude, strength, determination, and kindness in everything she did. For Kash, it was a pleasure to do a mission with Miriam. Hopefully, they will team up very soon again to do more good!