poop beetle: weekend work 3.2004 Last night at work I met a woman whose three-week-old daughter was in the hospital. She'd been born with multiple heart problems. "The best doctors in the world, they got right here." She said.
"I don't like those residents though- they tell me one thing then leave then come back with something else".
(I imagine them huddled in a conference room pouring through notes- reentering the room, trying to exude confidence).
"The main doctor, though- people come from all over the world to see him."
"Yeah"- I say. "They've got people like that here".
"I'm tired". She says. "I'm sick of this place".
"I'll bet." I say. "I can't imagine" . . .
Silence
"So you just gave birth three weeks ago? Wow. What's her name?" I ask.
Destiny is her new baby girl's name.
On 6-peds there's a gaggle of unsupervised 13/14 year olds hanging in the waiting room. They're rapping. As I pass them I hear "I want you to strip, baby, baby awwww yeah!" I do a double take and the tallest one says "That's right, bay-bee, I'm talkin' to you!" And they all burst into laughter. One of them must have a brother or sister here, or cousin and that's where the adults are, with the dr.s in the room.
Later, I pass them again and they're chasing, each other in circles around the waiting room chairs.
Ms. X is dropped off by a cabby. I think he's family and begin to ask him all the questions you do. Except he doesn't sit in the family, question-asking chair. He's standing with half his body leaning towards the exit. He tells me she has Alzheimers and that he really has to go.
I confer with a co-worker & she says get all the papers signed anyway. I confirm her birthdate/address/ insurance information.
Mrs. X answers each question with "hmm?" or "Well, honey, I guess so." I get some help from another department, getting her up to her room. The person who helps me is very, very . . . I'm not sure what . . . Conscientious? Solicitous? Crazy? I'm thankful for his help, because he didn't have to- Not his department. I think, "what a considerate young man." And then within the two-mile hike to her room, I think . . ."not really mentally disabled . . . something else."
I'm not sure what it was, something about his overall pride in doing a good job- his self-directed assimilation into the big picture of helping people. Maybe that's why I picked up "nutso". Or it may have been the way he said "Don't work too hard, now!" -like 10 times.
In the main lobby after 9pm, they dim the lights and folks set up camp. Some bring in blow up mattresses; some just cover the couches with sheets and blankets. Many change into pajamas and set up battery powered reading lamps. The information desk people have left for the night, but there's a bank of phones on the far wall. That's where they'll get word.
Sometimes, as I move around this hospital I think it's like a city. In the evenings, passing the lobby campers- it feels like a space ship- they've lifted off, settling in for wherever they're going. A combination of the two might make it one of those deep space explorer things. A traveling city- full of people who had to leave some planet about to get creamed by a meteor- trying to go about the business of functioning because who knows when or where they'll land.
I like second shift, weekends- I wonder if first shift is full of the same strange, chilly, wonder.
