Working in the hospital has the side benefit of Sensitivity Training. I’m not referring to overcoming prejudices, though that’s certainly a big part of helping people. I’m talking about assumptions as in, do not make them. When I make them, they backfire.  Learn from my mistakes. 

Generalizations lead to Oops Moments —

Part of my job as an ER Volunteer is to take Patients in labor up to the 3rd Floor — the Floor for Labor and Delivery and Post Partum. It’s where we get to look through the windows and see all of those cutey-patooty-newborns in their first hours of life. And it’s a Floor where Patients usually get to take home more than just a hospital bill.  For months whenever I’d meet people in the elevator going up to the 3rd Floor  I’d say something like —

So you’re going to the happy floor…

They’d smile and say something about having a baby, or waiting for a baby to be born, or visiting a new baby —

— Till last week, when I said it to a sleep-deprived-but-otherwise-good-looking-guy who explained he was on the Third Floor to visit his grandmother — who’d just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer.

Oh, Sorry. I didn’t realize…

(Apparently it’s also the floor for gyno issues. Who knew?)

More Assumptions I shouldn’t have made…

Then on my shift yesterday morning, I wished this couple “Happy 4th of July” –  another faux pas —  evidently a firecracker landed on their roof last year and burned their house down. Yikes! I doubt that I’ll ever hear a 4th of July KA-BOOM in quite the same way again. And — speaking of the 4th, I seriously doubt that the spectators from that explosive situation in Simi Valley last night will feel quite so warm and cuddly about Independence Day either.

Before I went home, I gave Mira a piece of the Chocolate Cake that I’d surprised the staff with (topped with Chocolate Frosting and Red and Blue M&M’s)

Being “Mira” she got all excited and appreciative, telling me how thoughtful I was. (Later I found out from Tyrell that Mira’s allergic to chocolate!)

Bottom Line–

Never assume anything in the hospital. It’s the land of the unexpected — the place where happy and sad collide.

Much later,  after watching Fireworks and before crashing, I googled “Magnolia Bakery Vanilla Cupcake Recipe.”  I think my Sensitivity Training is already starting to sink in…  I’m trying to channel my inner-Mira.