SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Although he is a volunteer at St. Luke's Regional Medical Center, don't call teenager William Tjeerdsma a candy striper.
He will correct you.
"I tell people I'm the modern-day version of that," Tjeerdsma said with a grin.
He decided to become a St. Luke's junior volunteer in 2009. His responsibilities include, but are not limited to, helping with paperwork, filing, answering patient call lights and stocking the patient unit kitchens at the hospital. He has accumulated 540 volunteer hours.
"The qualities of an ideal junior volunteer would include being conscientious, courteous, hardworking, dedicated, always upbeat and happy to do whatever needs to be done," said Diane Wheeler, volunteer services manager. "That is William."
The Sioux City teen was not unfamiliar with the hospital atmosphere when he started. Tjeerdsma's relationship with the health care system began when he was an infant.
"My mom says when I was 10 months old she was changing my diaper and noticed a wiggle in my eye," he said. "She asked my dad, who was a cardiologist, what it might be. He wasn't sure it was anything but thought it should be checked out."
The doctor at Tjeerdsma's well-baby checkup in Biloxi, Miss., delivered another "nothing-is-wrong" assurance, but just to be on the safe side, an MRI was ordered.
"My folks said they walked into the room and it was deathly quiet," Tjeerdsma said.
The MRI revealed that the cause of that eye wiggle was a brain tumor arising out of Tjeerdsma's optic nerves. Aggressive chemotherapy was initiated for the 11-month-old, but the mass continued to grow.
"Basically they told my folks nothing more could be done and predicted I would not live past my second birthday," the 16-year-old said.
But Ken and Melissa Tjeerdsma would not settle for that diagnosis.
"My parents believed God was going to heal me," William Tjeerdsma said. "They found out about a doctor in California, a pediatric neurosurgeon, who might be able to help."
At age 2, Tjeerdsma underwent brain surgery on the tumor that had tripled in size in eight months. Dr. Michael Edwards removed almost 60 percent of the tumor and provided a more positive prognosis: With chemotherapy, the toddler should thrive, although regular check-ups were necessary.
For seven years, Edwards' prediction held. However, in 2004, a scan showed that Tjeerdsma's tumor had grown a little, and Edwards operated again at Stanford University Medical Center.
"Mom and I stayed at the Ronald McDonald House at Stanford when I had surgery and during the eight weeks I was receiving radiation therapy," Tjeerdsma said. "That's when I set the first volunteering goal for myself."
He decided to put in 24 hours of volunteer time at the Ronald McDonald House while receiving radiation. For those efforts he received an award from the Ronald McDonald House.
Later that year Tjeerdsma received a notice in the mail about Team Ronald McDonald participating in the Nike Half-Marathon in 2005 in San Francisco.
"I decided I wanted to be a part of it and raise $2,400, just like my 24 hours of volunteerism there," he said. "Ultimately I raised $3,000, which was my contribution toward the total $110,000 that was raised by Team Ronald McDonald."
Since 2005, Tjeerdsma has had a couple of surgeries on the two shunts in his skull.
"I'm outgrowing the shunt, causing it to not work properly," he said, then added: "It's interesting, considering I wasn't expected to grow up at all."
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