VOLUNTEERS BRING SMILES TO KIDS IN HOSPITAL.

Byline: Dennis McCarthy

The baby girl turned 8 months old Wednesday, which is six months longer than doctors thought she would live.

Her name is Vianka Ordonez, and she will spend the rest of her life right here in this pediatric intensive care unit at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, said her nurse, Ladonna Della-Gala.

It won't be a very long life. It can't be. Just about all her internal organs either don't work or, like her tiny heart, are severely undersized. She will soon outgrow them.

Even with all the advances in modern medicine, doctors still haven't found the surgical procedures that would give this baby an outside chance at a longer life.

So she must embrace the short one she has now here.

And that's exactly what she did on her 8-month birthday Wednesday, smiling and giggling, dressed like a kewpie doll when a couple of puppets named Limber Louie and Huggy Harry stopped by her room to pay a visit.

These are the tough ones, Barry Shemaria and Kathy Kaminsky say. The kids who won't make it.

This is why when they wheel their popular Humor Cart into these pediatric rooms, they ask only names, never diagnoses. Keeping a smile on your face in front of sick, scared children is tough enough.

These women and other volunteers from the San Fernando Valley chapter of Jewish Women International have been wheeling this cart filled with toys, games, coloring books, video games, crayons, bubbles and more down these hospital halls three days a week for almost three years now.

They've replaced tears and fear with smiles on the faces of hundreds of hospitalized kids.

Sometimes, it's easy, like with kids visiting the emergency room with scrapes and bruises.

Other times, it's awfully tough, especially with the kids in ICU.

``You just never know what you're going to find when you wheel this cart into a room,'' said Kaminsky, chairwoman of the group.

That's why she and Shemaria, a retired children's librarian, bring Limber Louie and Huggy Harry with them.

The cute, furry puppets are the ice breakers, and they were breaking plenty of ice with the kids in the pediatrics ward and emergency room Wednesday.

``When you're able to wipe the fear off a kid's face and replace it with a smile, you walk out of that room feeling awfully good,'' said Shemaria, watching her friend slip Limber Louie over her hand and make a scared little girl break into a smile.

``It's strange, but I have a lot of women tell me they couldn't do what we're doing, and I just can't understand why,'' she added. ``What greater gift can an older person like me give a sick child than a smile?

``We've had parents tell us their children hadn't smiled in days until we wheeled that cart into their room, and Louie and Harry did their magic,'' Shemaria said.

Kaminsky visited one child recently who had a head trauma. He could not speak and only moved his limbs with great difficulty.

``We showed him a few of our Huggy Harry tricks, and when it was time to leave, Harry waved goodbye to him,'' she said.

You had to look real carefully, she said, to see the kid wave goodbye to the puppet with his fingers.

We stood by the hospital elevator in silence. Nobody felt much like talking or smiling anymore. Vianka Ordonez was on our minds.

Would the baby still be alive when the Humor Cart made its rounds again in a few days? Would Della-Gala, her wonderful, dedicated nurse, continue to prove the doctors wrong and keep the baby alive a week, two weeks longer?

Watching over Vianka like a mother hawk as she finely tunes and monitors the tubes covering her tiny body with the precision of a concert pianist.

``She's a special little girl to all of us here,'' Della-Gala said. ``Always smiling, like nothing's wrong.''

But everything was wrong, and we all knew it. Twenty humor carts wouldn't change that.

``Puts everything in perspective, doesn't it?'' Kaminsky said, finally breaking the ice as the elevator arrived.

We all nodded, and I said goodbye. I had a column to write, and they had an emergency room to visit.

``C'mon, Harry and Louie,'' Shemaria said, wheeling the Humor Cart down the hallway toward emergency. ``Let's go make some kids smile.''

Anyone interested in helping these women bring some smiles to kids in the hospital should contact Sue Costa, director of volunteer services at Northridge Hospital Medical Center. The number is [phone], ext. 2976.

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Photo: Eight-month-old Vianka Ordonez reacts to Barry Shemaria's puppets, Limber Louie and Huggy Harry, as the volunteer visits sick children at Northridge Hospital Medical Center.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer