Healthcare providers are super humans!

Healthcare providers are super humans. I know this for a fact.

From the moment I arrive to visit my sister at her Nursing facility, to the moment I am carried away by my husband, who keeps asking me why I am yelling instead of talking when I come out of there, my heart is racing, all day long.

Today I arrived in time for lunch. Food service hours are the busiest times of the day. There are trays to be passed out; complaints and switches of menu items to be made; calming of patients whose meal did not arrive on the scheduled time; assisting of patients with non-meal-related issues, as well as interruptions from well-meaning loved ones who want help heating/serving food brought in from the outside (which has, of course, not been cleared ahead by the dietitian). It is like walking into the eye of a storm, without the eerie silence.

As soon as the trays and debris begins to clear, the quiet chaos resumes. i.e. the patient at the end of the hall, that yells “Yoo-hoo! You-hoo! You-hoo!” every 5 seconds throughout the entire day, starts back up on queue.

And the gentleman that speaks in a loud, muffled voice that sounds like The Penguin on Batman starts in with his angry mumble/yelling. I don’t know which room is his. I don’t know what he’s saying. I don’t want to know. He scares the hell out of me – occasionally you can make out words such as, “You’re all filthy” or “Kill them! Kill them all!” But mostly, you can just feel the anger and it makes me avoid eye contact as I head to Jeri’s room.

Every time I enter the hallway, someone asks for my assistance.

Today a sweet little lady asked me to help her to her room. She gave me a room number that was non-existent, so I consulted an attendant who directed me to a two-bed room.

As we entered I asked, “Is this your bed?” “

Well,” she replied, “I’m not sure but,” nodding to a teddy bear on the first bed, “I do know this bear and I have met before.” (Melt my heart!)

Another time I ventured out to head to the visitors bathroom, and the halls were lined with roll-away plastic laundry/rubbish bins that the aides use for the disposables after cleaning up patients’ beds, etc.

There was a sweet little lady blocking my way, as she was stopped in her wheelchair, thumbing through the clean bags that hung from the front of these bins, seeing if she had use for any, I guess. Trying to get by her without disturbing her ‘shopping’ spree, I grabbed the cart to my right to move it and squeeze by. As my hand grasped the cart, I felt something soft, wet and mushy. I couldn't look.

I somehow made it to the bathroom and without breathing or looking down, I was able to scrub my hands clean, several times. You just can’t un-see stuff. If I had seen or smelled someone else’s poop on my hand, I’d still be in that facility, wrapped nice and tight in a straitjacket right now.

Tonight, my sister awoke, crabby and hungry, only to find her dinner was 30 minutes late. “Go check!” She said! As her roommate was screaming at the top of her lungs, “AAAaahahhh, I HAVE TO POOP!” . . . something snapped. 

I ran out into the hallway, eyes as big as saucers, saw an attendant who appeared to try to fly by the door unnoticed - I grabbed him, looked him desperately in the eye and shrieked, “BED 2 HAS TO POOP!  BED 1’S DINNER IS OVER 30 MINUTES LATE!  AND I NEED A VALIUM!”

His brown eyes went from distracted and all business, to warm and laughing. I had just made his day, and he had just made mine with his calm, controlled demeanor.

Healthcare workers are superstars.  It takes a special blend of strength, people skills and compassion to be able to do what they do, day in and day out. We cannot pay them enough, in my opinion.

I am a wreck every day I leave that place. I am going to roll around in my Tumbleweed with my Toad of a husband and my wrinkly old dog till the day I die. All I need is a lifetime supply of Valium.

Four or five more days and we are checking out of here; back to adventures on the road, rather than in a hallway.

All I can hear are the words to Hotel California . . . ”You can check out any time you like but you can never leave. . .”

Now where is that Valium!?