Familiar Faces Help Brighten Loneliness of Hospital Stays : Santa Paula: Larry and Judy Dunst find they’re welcomed as Raggedy Ann and Andy as they make weekly rounds visiting the young and old.

A cantankerous, tattoo-covered biker--laid up in Santa Paula Memorial Hospital with a broken back, encased in a full body cast--was giving the nurses fits before Larry and Judy Dunst decided to pay the young man a visit.

The husband-and-wife team, making their weekly rounds at the hospital to offer bedridden patients a little company, received a warning from the nurses: Be careful entering the room; he’s liable to start screaming.

After a gentle rap on the door, the couple poked their heads into the room and asked the burly 22-year-old if he cared to have a visitor.

“We walked in and he said, ‘Sure, come on in,’ ” recalled 36-year-old Judy Dunst. “Larry got on one side of the bed and I got on the other. He just kind of looked at us and started giggling.”

The appeased biker, awaiting surgery for the fractured vertebrae he suffered after being thrown from his Harley-Davidson motorcycle, found humor in the Dunsts’ attire: full Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy regalia.

Judy sported a light blue and white heart-patterned pinafore, bright red cheeks and nose and a mop-like wig; Larry, made up with similar features, wore a jumpsuit of red-and-white checks on top and sky blue on the bottom.

“The costume got us through the door because then he was curious,” said Larry, 50. “But the rest was the training.”

The Fillmore couple are Ventura County’s first participants in the nonprofit Love Yourself Foundation, a hospital visitation program based in Santa Barbara.

Founded in 1985 by 48-year-old Karen Fox of Santa Barbara, the program’s volunteers are trained to boost the spirits of hospitalized patients by providing moral support--via a sympathetic ear. About 300 volunteers have been trained, and there are 70 active volunteers in Santa Barbara County, Los Angeles and San Diego, plus three in Hanover, N.H.

“Hospitals are a lonely place,” said Fox, who survived an extended battle with cervical cancer. “Not only do you have to deal with physical pain, but you also have to fight the fear and loneliness. It can be overwhelming at times.”

The Dunsts recently completed the foundation’s requisite four-day training seminar in Santa Barbara, studying, among other topics, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of dying: denial, grief, anger, bargaining and acceptance.

For the past four months they have spent their Sunday mornings at the small, one-level Santa Paula hospital, deftly employing their listening skills. Sauntering through the halls--with stops in emergency, ICU and maternity, talking with young and old--the couple greet any patient permitted to have guests. The simple, friendly overture--”Howdy, would ya like a visitor?”--usually gets them through the door.

“I think they’re neat,” said Dr. Robert Dekkers, a pediatrician at the hospital. “It really perks up the adults as well as the kids. They have helped out a lot of my young patients.”

Director of nursing Karin Lyders said this is the only visitation program she has seen at the hospital.

“This is unique. Nobody’s ever approached me and asked to visit patients. Some people offer to make dolls and provide toys. But this is a special program. It’s very generous in that regard.”

Not all visits are cheerful, said Larry Dunst, a pharmacist who owns Clough’s Pharmacy in Fillmore.

“When you walk into a room and ask ‘How are you?’--and the person says, ‘I’m going to die soon’--you don’t say, ‘You’re not going to die; everything will be all right,’ ” he said. “Some of these people are not going to get better. They are going to die. You have to deal with that and it’s better to shut up and listen to what they have to say.”

“There’s no baloney,” added Judy.

Giving patients carte blanche in the conversation helps reduce their stress and anxieties, the Dunsts say.

It worked for the biker.

“He really started to open up, talking about the accident and talking about, ‘Boy, I sure would like to get out of here. I’ve been a real pain in the rear to the nurses,’ ” Judy said. “Except he didn’t use that language.”

The Dunsts spend about an hour and half at the hospital, generally chatting with 10 to 12 patients.

Many encounters last only a few minutes, as did a recent one with Mareen Justice, 36, who was admitted for liver disease complications. The dark-haired Justice, alone in a tiny, dimly lit room, was happy to have visitors.

She spoke about her recent move to Fillmore from Orange County and expressed worries about her young daughter, who seemed uncommonly introverted at the sight of her weakened mother lying flat on her back.

Just before saying their goodbys, Judy reached into the large flowered handbag she totes around the hospital and pulled out a smallish Raggedy Ann doll for Justice to keep.

At five bucks a pop, the Dunsts have spent hundreds of dollars doling out the miniature companions. “You can tell her anything, anytime,” Judy said to a smiling Justice. “Raggedy will always listen.”

“They made my whole day,” Justice said, clutching the doll to her chest after the Dunsts left her room. “This is the first time I’ve smiled since being in here.”

Next stop, the intensive care unit.

There they unexpectedly found Larry’s longtime friend and retired insurance agent, Jerry Camp, a Santa Paula resident. Camp had rushed his wife, Erma, 64, to the hospital because of respiration problems. An oxygen tube was inserted into her trachea to aid in breathing.

Here they spent 10 minutes--the longest of all their visits that day--as Camp explained his wife’s condition and expressed his concerns.

“He needs just as much help as his wife,” Larry said. Judy added, “Sometimes the patients are out of it and it’s the family that needs someone to talk to.”

According to nursing director Lyders: “That’s something the nurses can’t afford to do anymore--we just don’t have time to do that. It’s one of the niceties of having them here.”

Ventura County’s Raggedy team could soon grow by six.

Lori and Alan Harris of Fillmore have expressed interest in volunteering their time to an area nursing home. Their 3-year-old twins and their two other youngsters are allowed to partake in Raggedy activities at a nursing home.

“Kids and nursing homes go well together,” Lori said. “They love the kids.

“This is something everybody gets a thrill out of. A lot of those folks don’t have anybody; they need lots of visitors,” she said.

The only impediment the Harrises face: a $1,500 expense for attending the Love Yourself Foundation’s seminar. Simon Fox, Karen’s husband and co-founder of the foundation, said the money pays for training, recruiting, outfitting and supporting the volunteers. The foundation has three full-time employees-- Simon and Karen Fox and a secretary.

The Dunsts’ involvement in the program was sponsored by the Fillmore Sunrisers Rotary Club, which footed the bill. Rotary club members say they would like to see the program expand in the area, and more sponsorships are likely in the near future.

“This is about getting back to grass roots,” said Karen Fox, who made her first Raggedy Ann visit in 1984. “People helping people.”

FYI

According to co-founder Simon Fox, the nonprofit Love Yourself Foundation will begin recruiting Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy volunteers in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties in the fall.

Anyone interested in volunteering or providing sponsorship may reach the foundation in Santa Barbara at 687-5803.