I jump out of the van with my bulging backpack and say bye to the rest of my family after they drop me off in front of the hospital. The hospital has changed from a foreign and intimidating place to a familiar one. I already have some fun memories of volunteering here. I sign in at the front desk and don my enviously-fashionable (not really) maroon vest. I scan my badge and the double doors to the ED swing open. Such power! Mwhahaha!
The ED has quickly become a comfortable environment for me. It smells like hospital soap and hand sanitizer, cafeteria food and other things somewhat less pleasant. There's the constant beeping of monitors, people talking and laughing (okay, so maybe that's just the staff) or moaning, or crying, or screaming (not too often) or puking. Nurses are everywhere, wheeling patients this way and that, ambulance crews coming in and out, family member of patients wandering around, lost or bored.
I always start my 2 hour shift the same way. I go into the kitchen and check the tall blanket warmer, which is usually low on blankets. Then I fill the fridge with gatorade and soda, trying not to send soda cans rolling across the floor (again). The coffee pot is usually cold, probably left over from the morning shift, so I make a fresh pot. I have on one occasion been asked by one of the doctors to use the tube-sucky machine (for lack of any other name for it) where you put the canisters in the stand, push the magic buttons and whoosh, up the canister goes into the unknown. (I know, I'm ridiculous).
Then I begin my will-nilly wandering from room to room, stocking up the blankets, sheets, gowns, pillowcases, towels and washcloths, carting piles of linens back and forth, back and forth. It's a simple task, but I somehow manage to forget (several times) what it was I needed for this room, or what that room was low on. Back and forth. It's a hard 'nough life for a short person sometimes. I have to stand in my tip-toes to reach the top shelves. I have been playfully teased about my height when I couldn't reach to get the IV bag down off the stand.
Once that's done, it's a race against the nurses (or in the extreme competition, against housekeeping) to see who gets to thee dirty rooms first. I often win, since the nurses are usually happy to have someone to pass this job off to. It may sound weird, but I love cleaning. I do it at home with more frustration since it's an exercise in futility and my little siblings are quite capable of cleaning up most of their own messes. But at the hospital, the dirtier the room, the better. Maybe simply because I keeps me busy. It's the balance between being fast and being thorough. See with what speed I whip off the bed linens, squirt the bed with disinfectant, swab it with the pillow and wipe the whole thing down. It's satisfaction guaranteed for me pick up the plastic wrappers, bloody gauze, rubber gloves, random papers, biohoop bags, IV bags, disposable suture tools, cups and whatever else it may be and depositing them in their proper receptacles. (Now I'm ridiculous and weird).
The ED is a fascinating place to work, even for two hours. Sometimes it's so dull I could go to sleep, or on nights like tonight ambulance crews are always coming in, sometimes two at a time. On quiet nights I wander round and round the zones until the nurses are probably dizzy and thinking, "Someone give that volunteer something to do, before she drives me insane!" And then there's those nights when I've just barely gotten in the doors and the nurses are like, "Oh, 4 is ready to be cleaned!" "Can you see if Trauma B wants something to drink?" "Volunteer! Can you help me? I need 4 of these sent to lab, and 4 to pharmacy." "Oh, and when your done..."
I love those nights. Especially now that I'm getting to know the nurses on a first name basis, and they're finally starting to call me by my name instead "Volunteer". Now that those first few awkward, bungling weeks are past, it feels less like being an intruder and more like being a part (albeit a small part) of a team. It's the way the nurses ask me to do them a favor, ask me how my day is going, or talk to me about this patient of theirs.
The people are all interesting, too. There are the staff of course, the occasional police officers or state trooper who look a little bit out of place in a hospital, the noisy little kids full of pent-up energy from waiting too long, the patients who suffer in silence, the ones who somehow manage a smile despite whatever their ailment or injury, the less common drunk and then there are those patients.The ones who arouse both your sympathy and, well...frustration (that's probably a kind term). Case in point is that one night when I heard the screaming. And I mean screaming. I thought it was a little girl. That's what it sounded like.
It wasn't.
I usually never know the patients' names or what they are there for, and such was the case then. All I know is this poor lady, probably somewhere in her late twenties-early thirties did not want an IV. And she made her case to the nurses with unmistakable certainty. I had to sympathize--I hate needles myself, and I had no idea why she was there. Anyone screaming and crying like that must surely be in a great deal of pain, so who was I to judge?
But perhaps some of the sympathy is lost when you hear the aforesaid patient say to a family member over the phone, "Did you hear that? It hurts so bad! Oooh! Here, let me send you a picture. Oooh!"
God bless her nurses. They were so understanding and caring, and even if her suffering was imagined, or even primarily, er, psychological.
I love the ED. It's a neat place to be, and I can definitely say volunteering there has helped me decide what I want to do in life.
The ED has quickly become a comfortable environment for me. It smells like hospital soap and hand sanitizer, cafeteria food and other things somewhat less pleasant. There's the constant beeping of monitors, people talking and laughing (okay, so maybe that's just the staff) or moaning, or crying, or screaming (not too often) or puking. Nurses are everywhere, wheeling patients this way and that, ambulance crews coming in and out, family member of patients wandering around, lost or bored.
I always start my 2 hour shift the same way. I go into the kitchen and check the tall blanket warmer, which is usually low on blankets. Then I fill the fridge with gatorade and soda, trying not to send soda cans rolling across the floor (again). The coffee pot is usually cold, probably left over from the morning shift, so I make a fresh pot. I have on one occasion been asked by one of the doctors to use the tube-sucky machine (for lack of any other name for it) where you put the canisters in the stand, push the magic buttons and whoosh, up the canister goes into the unknown. (I know, I'm ridiculous).
Then I begin my will-nilly wandering from room to room, stocking up the blankets, sheets, gowns, pillowcases, towels and washcloths, carting piles of linens back and forth, back and forth. It's a simple task, but I somehow manage to forget (several times) what it was I needed for this room, or what that room was low on. Back and forth. It's a hard 'nough life for a short person sometimes. I have to stand in my tip-toes to reach the top shelves. I have been playfully teased about my height when I couldn't reach to get the IV bag down off the stand.
Once that's done, it's a race against the nurses (or in the extreme competition, against housekeeping) to see who gets to thee dirty rooms first. I often win, since the nurses are usually happy to have someone to pass this job off to. It may sound weird, but I love cleaning. I do it at home with more frustration since it's an exercise in futility and my little siblings are quite capable of cleaning up most of their own messes. But at the hospital, the dirtier the room, the better. Maybe simply because I keeps me busy. It's the balance between being fast and being thorough. See with what speed I whip off the bed linens, squirt the bed with disinfectant, swab it with the pillow and wipe the whole thing down. It's satisfaction guaranteed for me pick up the plastic wrappers, bloody gauze, rubber gloves, random papers, biohoop bags, IV bags, disposable suture tools, cups and whatever else it may be and depositing them in their proper receptacles. (Now I'm ridiculous and weird).
The ED is a fascinating place to work, even for two hours. Sometimes it's so dull I could go to sleep, or on nights like tonight ambulance crews are always coming in, sometimes two at a time. On quiet nights I wander round and round the zones until the nurses are probably dizzy and thinking, "Someone give that volunteer something to do, before she drives me insane!" And then there's those nights when I've just barely gotten in the doors and the nurses are like, "Oh, 4 is ready to be cleaned!" "Can you see if Trauma B wants something to drink?" "Volunteer! Can you help me? I need 4 of these sent to lab, and 4 to pharmacy." "Oh, and when your done..."
I love those nights. Especially now that I'm getting to know the nurses on a first name basis, and they're finally starting to call me by my name instead "Volunteer". Now that those first few awkward, bungling weeks are past, it feels less like being an intruder and more like being a part (albeit a small part) of a team. It's the way the nurses ask me to do them a favor, ask me how my day is going, or talk to me about this patient of theirs.
The people are all interesting, too. There are the staff of course, the occasional police officers or state trooper who look a little bit out of place in a hospital, the noisy little kids full of pent-up energy from waiting too long, the patients who suffer in silence, the ones who somehow manage a smile despite whatever their ailment or injury, the less common drunk and then there are those patients.The ones who arouse both your sympathy and, well...frustration (that's probably a kind term). Case in point is that one night when I heard the screaming. And I mean screaming. I thought it was a little girl. That's what it sounded like.
It wasn't.
I usually never know the patients' names or what they are there for, and such was the case then. All I know is this poor lady, probably somewhere in her late twenties-early thirties did not want an IV. And she made her case to the nurses with unmistakable certainty. I had to sympathize--I hate needles myself, and I had no idea why she was there. Anyone screaming and crying like that must surely be in a great deal of pain, so who was I to judge?
But perhaps some of the sympathy is lost when you hear the aforesaid patient say to a family member over the phone, "Did you hear that? It hurts so bad! Oooh! Here, let me send you a picture. Oooh!"
God bless her nurses. They were so understanding and caring, and even if her suffering was imagined, or even primarily, er, psychological.
I love the ED. It's a neat place to be, and I can definitely say volunteering there has helped me decide what I want to do in life.
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