confusing emotions

Ever notice when a Emergency Siren BLASTS just as you’re in the middle of a really happy moment (like falling in love, or celebrating something?) I do. It reminds me that JOY and SADNESS happen at the same moment. There’s never a time when all of the people everywhere are happy… or sad. I guess that’s what makes the world work in a weird way.  Unfortunately or fortunately we have to experience each emotion to understand the difference, as a basis of comparison, kind’a like SALTY and SWEET. I mean, even Fairy Tales have tragedy (sadly, Bambi and Cinderella lose their Moms.)

Nightmare Night-Shift –

At the Hospital last night I ended up staying past my ER Shift, way into the morning hours.  Every once in awhile in the ER, you get to know repeat patients and their families. Sure, you recognize Frequent Fliers (there for drugs) or Homeless People (there for food). But I’m talking about Patients who come in for chronic problems, along with their family members who love, worry and support them.

So last night this wonderful Hispanic Family brings in their 70 year-old Abuela (recently-widowed, mother of 13, grandmother of 31) with breathing problems and chest pains. I’ve seen them many times before, due to Abuela’s chronic health issues.

Surrounded by her hard-working and loving family (all became American Citizens btw) Abuela’s MUCH WORSE than usual. She’s weak, sweating, disoriented and gasping for breath. No Triage Nurses are around (strangely) so I rush her through the Trauma Door and suddenly the Charge Nurse grabs her wheelchair, pushes her into into Bed 1, hoists her onto the gurney –

CODE BLUE!
Staff storms in!
Paddles!
Curtain swishes CLOSED!
Frantic NOISE!
Then… NOTHING…
DEAD SILENCE!

Standing there dazed, I barely notice when the Psyche Nurse taps me on the shoulder and asks me to bring the Family into the PEDS WAITING ROOM (aka “The Bad News Room.”)

When there are no words…

Outside the door, I hear painful GASPS and SOBS! I swallow my heart. But stay… and wait… and wait.

When the Psyche Nurse walks out, I walk in. I try to comfort Abuela’s distraught daughters and sons, but what can you really say? NOTHING. You can HUG and LISTEN, but that’s really all you can do in a situation like this. Oh yeah, you also CRY… because it stirs up… MEMORIES…

At 5:30 AM (looking my ugliest) I’m in the elevator on my way to the parking lot, and a Man says, “Evie?” (Oh, It’s the Nice Dad of an old HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND I haven’t seen in years. Usually I’d be bummed, looking so awful, but today I don’t even care.)

Why are you in the hospital, is everything okay?

A proud grin –

_ _ _ _ _ _  (patient confidentiality) just had a baby!  Come see!

So I do…

And that’s what I mean about HAPPY/SAD…

(What Happy/Sad Moments have you experienced this year already? Or ever?)

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conundrums

On my ER shift, a Little Kid’s freaking out about having to get stitches, so I ask him if he can keep a secret? Uh-huh.

Wanna know our  SECRET CODE WORD ?

Yeah!…
…so I whisper: “Owww!”

Minutes later when  Dr. A dabs numbing cream on his wound, the kid yells, “Owww!” So I SHUSH! him about giving away the CODE WORD and he actually giggles – PLUS I get a “trying-not-to-smile-but-I-can’t-help-it” from Dr. A! So it’s a win/WIN of epic proportions! (My Mom would be so proud!)

Then in Triage, ANTHONY shouts at me for taking too many visitors back to see their Mom (c’mon Chan!) which is sooo frustrating! As I’ve said before — working in the ER is a LOVE|HATE situation!

ER Ambivalence –
THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE WHATEVER!

LOVE

De-Stressing the stressed (Helps de-stress me too.)

FINDING THE FUNNY + earning a SMILE (Comic timing must be right, otherwise it’s all wrong!)

Appreciation (The “air” volunteers breathe!)

Patient Patients (So rare, I really appreciate them.)

Happy Endings  (NOT the kind you’re thinking of.)

HATE

Walkie Talkies (Talk about “impersonal!”)

Go To Registration FIRST (It says: “Our money is more important than your chest pains!)

Too many cooks (So many experts – So many opinions!)

Too many rules (And they change every week, truth!)

The odors (Code Brown, need I say more?)

Suffering (Can’t think about it…)

Death (No words…)

TOLERATE

Bossy Pants (Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re just being a Buttinsky!)

Frequent Flyers (Gotta give it to ‘em, addicts can be pretty creative.)

Pushy Family Members (They’re just scared and feel helpless.)

Impatient Patients (We all feel that way, right?)

(What do you love|hate|tolerate in the ER?)

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pink is a serious color

Hearing CODE WHATEVER on the loudspeaker is pretty typical in the hospital.  The most common ones are Code Blue (Medical Emergency) or Code Red (Fire/Smoke).

When it’s Code Red, the overhead lights start flashing like there’s no tomorrow and the doors auto-close and it’s easy to get a little freaked-out because what if there really was a fire and the doors closed so you couldn’t get out?  But every time I’ve heard “Code Red” (they always mention the location) within seconds there’s another announcement that says “Code Red All Clear.”

But today’s a different story. I’ve just dropped off a L & D (Labor & Delivery) Patient on 3 and I’m about to go back down to the E.R. when I hear –

CODE PINK 3 WEST! CODE PINK 3 WEST!

Code Pink = Infant Abduction. Code Pink means that EVERYONE on the staff – ANYWHERE in the hospital is supposed to drop what he/she is doing and BLOCK the nearest exit.

CODE PINK means –

1. Look for suspicious persons who seem panicky or in a hurry carry a large bundle, tote bag, gym bag or an infant.
2. Note gender, race, attire, description, direction of travel and mode of travel.
3. Call Security STAT!

My heart THUMP-THUMP-THUMPS as everyone on Staff behaves like a Soldier going off to battle. No one talks. We’re on a mission.  I leave my wheelchair in a corner and head to the doorway by the stairs. On my way I pass four Nurses standing in front of four elevators. No one is smiling.  I take the post at the top of the stairwell. My eyes dart up the stairs, down the stairs. I listen for suspicious sounds.

Amplified again –

CODE PINK 3 WEST! CODE PINK 3 WEST!

No one’s in sight. But I feel brave, ready react. Then a GIANT LUMP expands in my throat, as I imagine the Parents in a panic — the little Innocent unprotected.

Five minutes pass but it seems ten times longer. Then –

CODE PINK 3 WEST ALL CLEAR. CODE PINK 3 WEST ALL CLEAR!

Phew! I go back, grab the wheelchair and head down to the E.R. feeling shaken but feel really proud to be a part of the Staff. I’m glad I’d actually listened to Charlayne in the last Training Session.

I see Dr. A downstairs and tell him about the experience, forgetting he knows (DUH!) since the loudspeaker blasts hospital-wide!

He’s really sweet though and gives me the warmest smile ever — and says CODE PINK always throws him too. Apparently it was the Baby Lojac system. The Parents left before the ELECTRONIC ANKLE BRACELET was removed.

YIKES! I’ll never-ever-ever hear another CODE ANYTHING in quite the same way again. Would you?

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• Communication Gap

Just got home from an exhausting Sunday eve in the E.R. and before I watch “Entourage” I need to vent about the CHALLENGES OF COMMUNICATION, specifically about – -

Being HEARD!

It’s the 5:00 to 9:00 shift and I land in the waiting room from hell! Anthony Chan is being particularly pissy. Multi-tasking, he takes vitals of a SOB (in E.R. speak that’s “shortness of breath” guys) and answers the phone abruptly but he keeps getting interrupted by this 60ish man who looks like he’s about to blow a gut. The gut blower demands that Anthony listen to him NOW.  Anthony snaps condescendingly –

 Sir, please take a seat!

This makes the man MADDER and MADDER and he gets LOUDER and LOUDER, leading to a head-butting encounter between Miguel and the Mad Man (he’s no Don Draper btw.)  Miguel’s Security Guard macho-ness enflames the situation even more.

So I come to the rescue.

Yes – me!  Maybe it’s because I’m just starting my shift and haven’t been hammered all day by complainers, coughers and catastrophes. Maybe my morning beach run and yoga class actually did put me in the zone. But basically I just LISTEN to him vent about his wife’s long wait and how she’d been in the Cancer Center all night getting transfused and how he can’t bear to watch her suffer in a freezing E.R. waiting room for three hours where nobody gives a…

FLYING F_ _ _ !

I head over to the wife with an apology and blanket and tell the couple I’ll be right back after I look for a room.  I find one (thankfully) and call EVS (Environmental Services) to clean it. Then I sweet talk Anthony into letting them go next. The man feels heard. The wife feels like we care. And I feel like NURSE NIGHTINGALE! (Usually I feel like Nurse Jackie – ahaha, just kidding!)

The E.R.’s kinda microcosmic in terms of the world in general.  See, we may be different ethnicities with different levels of education experiencing different levels of stress, but –

We all just want to be HEARD!

We want someone to CARE. We want to MATTER.

So whether it’s a couple battling Cancer or two countries battling each other or our significant others NOT listening, we escalate internally BIG TIME if we feel ignored. Thing is, we need more than…

Chillax!

Blowing someone off is NOT funny!

Are you listening?

(Okay, so what makes you feel dissed? Share in the comments!)

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Yikes!

OMG! Welcome to my –

N I G H T M A R E !

It’s an EMERGENCY SITUATION

Tonight in Triage –

• A high maintenance celeb panic-attacking
• A screamy-meemy breaking my eardrums
• A flu-inflicted boy leaving a very gaseous trail
• A foreigner with his infected toe oozing out of his socks
• A moany mommy in labor with a freaked-out baby daddy
• A hungry homeless man begging for a hot meal
• An oldie-but-definitely-not-goodie barfing
• A super cute paramedic rolling in a bloody GSW
• A cocky gynecologist making me chaperone his pelvic exam (Euuu!)
• A bitchy resident making it her job to torture me
• Charlayne, my supervisor giving me the evil eye

I thought I’d gotten better about handling things, but gross bodily fluids don’t work for me.

Get me some wine and a midnight yoga class, stat!

CODE whatever!

Just get me outta there!

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he needs a bear hug

Arrivederci vacay!
Last night it’s back to my dreaded reality (ugh!) Running late, I’m already in deep do-do as I listen to three escalating voicemails from Charlayne, translating to: “Where the F are you!?”

The ER is a Zoo –

Triage is backed up. A worried Mommy carries in a little cutie whose curly blond locks are now stained blood red from a nasty fall. Then there’s this seven year-old scared kid who limps in with his Mom. And a nice voluptuous Latina who in-between constant calls on her cell, apologizes as her “UNCLE” upchucks all the way to the men’s room.

As I escort the limping kid (now on the verge of tears) to Bed 18, I try (unsuccessfully) to cheer him up. We pass by Dr. Adam COUGHING as he finishes up dictation on the phone –

ADAM: You’re BACK!
ME: You’re SICK!

I’m thinking: “Have you seen a doctor?” when I realize he sees one every time he looks in the mirror (ahaha!)
I covertly dial: 310 274 0101

After his unconvincing, “I’m really okay, COUGH COUGH!”  Dr. A disappears into 18 where the kid is now really worked up. I sort of peek from the doorway and see Adam pretending to check different parts of him with a tickle here and a tickle there, saying “Does it hurt here? Or here?” And the kid actually laughs. So I’m kinda loving Dr. A right now.

I get beeped on my phone (oh, yeah – the delivery guy) and I run out front. When I come back carrying a bag from Nate n Al’s I see Adam coming out of 18 –

ADAM:  I guess I’d better go home COUGH.

ME:  Here. Matzo ball soup with extra noodles.

ADAM: Aw, that’s something my mom would do.

ME:  Not what I was going for.

ADAM:  No chance (cute grin) COUGH!

ME:  K, well um feel better.

ADAM:  Already do.

As he COUGHS his way out the door I realize I do too. Being back isn’t so bad after all. Ahaha!

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don't tell

Last night in the ER was actually funny in an OMG-this-could’a-turned-out-so-much-worse way!

An elegantly dressed 80-ish man (with his grandson) comes in asking to see his wife who was just brought in by the a paramedics.  I ask the last name and go look it up on the computer. She’s listed in Bed 6. So I go there to ask her if it’s okay to bring back her husband. But she’s asleep — with a breathing apparatus — and I can’t see her very well. She’s a little overweight and looks a tad bit masculine to me, but I’ve heard that sometimes happens as women get older (ugh, kill me now!)  Still I’m not sure (but we Piscean chicks are never sure.)

Working in the E.R. can be a little confusing!

So I go back to Triage and I ask the husband if his wife has short white hair. He tells me, “yes — she went to the hairdresser this week.” So I go –

This is weird, because I’ve never asked this before, but do you happen to have a picture of your wife?

The grandson pulls out his phone and shows me a picture of Nana (they’d just been out to dinner — celebrating something.)

I look at the picture and now see the similarities. Her white hair is short and she’s a little overweight. Yay. So feeling more confident, I tell the husband his wife’s asleep, but I’ll take him back.

I escort him to Bed 6 where he stares at her for what seems like a verrrrry long time. Then he whispers to me, “I don’t think that’s my wife.”

And I say –

It’s a MAN isn’t it?!

AWKWARD! Then, he nods and we both giggle.

He comes out and sees his wife next to Bed 6 in a hallway bed (ooohhh) and I put my finger up to my lips and whisper, “Don’t tell anyone what just happened”

As I walk away, he starts telling his wife the “funniest story” and I mouth –

NOOOOOOOO!

Still, it coulda’ been SO much worse – like what if we’d walked into an exam of her “personal parts?!”

YIKES! It could’a been like the Crying Game or Hangover 2!

Ahahaha!

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First person I have to deal with on my ER shift tonight is Anthony Chan, the most uptight Triage Nurse ever – in an especially pissy mood – even for him.

pointing the finger

With his index fingernail painted in DAY GLOW ORANGE  (from a weekend of gay debauchery?) he condescendingly motions to me to come closer and in his most annoying voice –

VOLUNTEER  — see if you can do something to entertain the antsy six-year old in bed 16  – assuming it’s within your skill level!

(Thanks Anthony! Love when you call me “VOLUNTEER!”) I go to Bed 16, check out “Freckles” (can’t say her name cuz of Patient Confidentiality) and immediately bond with her, because I SO know how it feels to want to get out of the E.R.

Cut to: my “lightbulb” moment when I remember Rachel telling me about a cool project she did with her kids – THEN a sprint to my car (which thankfully I rarely clean out) –

I grab chopsticks (leftover from my last trip to Katsuya2Go) and yarn balls (from knitting projects I never quite finished) and beads I find under the car mats.

wish-maker

Forty minutes later (and after we watch a cute how-to video on my iPhone) Freckles, her Mom and I each have an awesome “God’s Eye” Dream Catcher with “wishes.” Soon after that, Freckles’ IV gets removed so her wish comes true. Then discharge papers arrive, so her Mom’s wish comes true and on their way out, Freckles shows Anthony what we made and points to me with a HUMONGOUS SMILE.

After they leave, Anthony motions again with his Day Glow finger –

Evie —  can you show me how to make one of those God’s Eye thingies so next time I babysit my niece I won’t have to come to work with a florescent forefinger?

Oh.

and –

Finally! He called me “Evie”…

(so my wish kinda comes true too!)

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People  always ask:

HOW can you stand to work in the ER!?

It’s weird, but now that I’ve done it for awhile, I’m sorta used to it. Some shifts are scarier than others. Or more frustrating —  or sad. But every once in awhile, I’ll finish one that actually feels AWESOME!

listen with your heart

Do I love it? Well sometimes I feel good about it.
Do I hate it? Oh yeah! Big time.
Am I glad I do it? Being forced into it wasn’t the best intro –
but am I proud I do it? Well yeah — I kinda am.

Pros of Volunteering in the ER

• It puts the minutiae of my life into perspective.
• It’s more important than whether or not a casting director likes me.
• It helps me, to help someone else.
• People can be so appreciative when I do the smallest things.
• It can be exhilarating or fun in a weird way, depending.
• No one recognizes me in the fugly outfit.
• My crocs are comfy.
• There are more opportunities than you might think, to help the Staff, Patients and their Families —  ”find the funny.”
• I get to see a certain doctor.

Cons of Volunteering in the ER

• Sometimes the tragedies stay with me long after I leave.
• Patients and their Families tend to take out their frustrations on the Volunteers.
• The rules change from week to week.
• It totally messes with my life and my career.
• When I do something wrong, it makes me feel like s__t.
• It can be boring or frustrating depending.
• The outfit’s really butt-ug!
• The crocs make my feet look ginormous!

Would I recommend it to someone who wants to make a difference, in a hands-on-way ? Well, if you want a Volunteer position, where you never sit down because you’re so busy helping in a million different ways, then volunteering in the E.R. might be exactly what you’re looking for.

(Have you ever thought about volunteering in an ER?)

Liked that? Check out:

• Finding our Way (with a little help from our friends)
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• FEELING CONFLICTED: ER Volunteer

Last night (after my my ER shift) something kinda magical happened. Can’t talk about it. Don’t want to jinx it. Let’s just say  Volunteering in the ER has unexpected benefits. Well see…

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOWHPDTTse4

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