Posts Tagged ‘h-h-help!’

the new flu can be rough-rough!

OMG! It’s a MASKADEMIC! Our hospital reminds me of Asia during the Sars Epidemic ‘cuz everyone’s wearing a MASK! Crazy! It’s like the opposite of what we learned in ER Volunteer Training when our Supervisor Charlayne told us –

Ya’ll need to wear masks around patients in ISO, but be sure to remove them when you’re walkin’ around. It’s like wearin’ rubber gloves in the waitin’ room. They give the wrong message.

Things are different now with the current strain of Flu — because it’s much stronger, scarier, and more virulent than in previous years. The new Flu is a RISK to the young, the old, the high-risk and even to HEALTHY humans. Yeah, it’s Twilight-Zone-y, sorta like that movie Gwyneth Paltrow was in: CONTAGION. Well no, not that bad —  but seriously, this new Flu can be a matter of life-and-death. No kidding! Read the rest of this entry »

Phew!

Sometimes when I’m lucky I wake up in an unexplainably good mood and the whole day smiles with possibility. But other times (like last night) my brain storms overtime with thunderous worrywart issues that get bigger and BIGGER — I can’t budge from bed, but I can’t go back to sleep either. It’s a nightmarish, paralyzing, painful state where I’m stuck worrying about relationships (or the lack thereof), or escalating credit card bills, or an audition I blew, or something I said and now wish I hadn’t.

FAUX PAS and PROBLEMS Echo in My Ears —

And — even though I know my problems are small compared to the ones I see in the ER, or watch on the news or read in my email alerts, they’re on my mind, magnified and they belong to me —  not someone I don’t know. Emotional DRAMA zaps my common sense, causing me to act CRAZY — making things even worse than they were before. Ugh! Read the rest of this entry »

“head up ass”

On my Volunteer Shift, when I take Patients to beds, I glance at the chart to see what the complaint is so I don’t ask them to remove more clothes than they have to. That’s not exactly a Volunteer Rule (Charlayne trained us to say: “Remove all of your clothes, gown open to the back”).  But in my opinion, it’s unnecessarily annoying to Patients if you add to their discomfort.  If they’re in the ER for a hurt finger or toe, I’m certainly not gonna make them take off all of their clothes (“do unto others…”). But if they have a gyno, abdominal or rectal issue, it’s protocol that they remove everything and pee in a cup, so I can’t always grant myself rule-exception privileges.

Over time I’ve learned all of the color codes and what abbreviations mean like A fib (heart irregularity) or AMS (altered mental state) or CP (chest pains), but today Anthony Chan was in a particularly pissy mood (which happens frequently) and he wrote down DBI for this tat-covered greaser with missing teeth. I’d never seen that abbreviation before, so I had to ask Tyrell what it meant.

DBI might not be something they teach in medical school (or maybe it is, which would be really scary!) But either way doctors know DBI means: “dirt bag index.” Oh. Read the rest of this entry »

help!

OMG! I’m the one who needs to be resuscitated!

I get to my late afternoon shift and things are already outta control! Sunday Night Special! Patients wall-to-wall. No available beds. Missing wheelchairs, codes blasting on the PA, screamie-meemies, chest pains.  Anthony Chan’s being a bigger-than-normal pain in the ass —

VOLUNTEER, what part of “limping” do you not understand? Get my patient a wheelchair, stat!

I check the hallways, L & D, parking lots – nada, nowhere, now what?

I’ve gotta return with wheels pronto, so I head into unfamiliar territory, open a daunting door with a “Staff Only” sign and step into a brightly lit waiting area, where I discover:

Two Empty Wheelchairs!  Voila! Yay! Perfect!

Uhm… WAIT!  What’s that abandoned patient doing lying on that gurney? Read the rest of this entry »

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 — Read the rest of this entry »

Why the rush to recast?

What the F@#K is going on with the daily RECASTS? It’s outta control! Apparently no one’s safe — even if your name is BIG. Execs who rushed to pull the trigger early can’t stop rethinking, reloading and making nervous ACTORS nervous-er!

TABLE READS = TROUBLE

NBC Comedy Pilot ‘Holding Patterns’ Recasts Role

Jane Adams Exits NBC’s Craig Robinson Pilot 

Christina Ricci Exits NBC Pilot ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’

Mercedes Masohn Exits ABC Pilot ‘Mixology’

It’s like getting the WORST FEEDBACK ever!!!

“Rising recasts” started last year, but now I feel like things are escalating. Blame it on TECHNOLOGY or JOB INSECURITY or the change from TESTING TO TAPING, or the rush to sign a BIG NAME without knowing if he or she is really right for the project. Not sure of the cause, but whatever… Read the rest of this entry »

Sorry, Mom — not feeling so optimistic right now.

Volunteering in the ER isn’t that hard most of the time. Though we help patients in stressful moments of need, we usually send them home with a fix or admit them upstairs for tests or rush them to the OR — and then move-on, “Next!” But every now and then I get sucked into the depth of someone’s despair and like quicksand it consumes me. The more experienced Volunteers, Doctors and Nurses appear to be affected the least. I guess that’s how they get through it.

TOLERATING TRAGEDY

I feel like our nation is experiencing an epidemic of “Desensitizeditis!”

Daily we hear about another random act of violence, often involving a gun and a possibly-bullied, off-balanced human who may or may not play video games, who watches a lot of violent movies and thinks it’s cool to go down in history as a cover story in People. No guilt or sadness over creating chaos and cruelty. No fear of repercussion. Just the overwhelming desire to do something devastating and LOUD. One last chance to be heard.

We as a society hear about it, read about it, Tweet about it —  and then move-on, “Next!” Meanwhile innocent people lose their lives. Family members and friends will never ever be the same. Civilization continues to sink. Maybe we can’t bear to focus on our own loss of safety and wellbeing. FEELING POWERLESS is not a good feeling. Read the rest of this entry »