The Unlikely Heroine

June 30, 1520: Spanish retreat from Aztec capital.

June 30, 1859: Daredevil crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope.

June 30, 1934: Night of the Long Knives (Nacht der langen Messer) takes place in Nazi Germany.

June 30, 1936: Gone with the Wind is published.

The history buffs were apparently out celebrating en masse in Midtown Memphis between midnight and 4:30 this morning.  I say this because they were demonstrating their love of all the wonderful (and not so wonderful) things that happened on June 30th by setting off noisy, brightly-colored fireworks on the street just below my apartment as I tried to sleep. As a result, I am at work today looking disheveled, feeling groggy, and in a generally foul mood.

The first round of explosions came just as I was entering the kind of quality deep sleep I’ve been deprived of recently. I did not stir until - through closed eyes - I noticed the sky was suddenly much, much brighter than it should be at that hour. I opened my eyes and sat up in bed after a rapid succession of sharp reports issued forth from the vicinity of the courtyard just outside my window. While my initial concern was that the building was under attack, it wasn’t long before the unmistakable multicolored bursts of flame shooting through the air convinced me that it was just a bunch of morons shooting roman candles in dangerous proximity to trees and buildings, as well as people struggling to sleep through it all.

At around 2:30 a.m., I called the police. I’m not sure if they ever actually showed up, not that it would have mattered; as it stands, I live approximately three blocks from a precinct, so it’s not like the firecracker bandit was concerned about being caught. And, hey - I was eventually able to get back to sleep… just in time for my alarm to go off.

Asshats.

Eight years ago today, the love of my life was forcibly extracted from my womb via an emergency caesarean section.

My kid rocks.

It makes me sad and maybe even a little angry whenever I see a chart on a 20-year-old female containing the words “gravida,” “para,” and any number over two or three. In this case, the patient was gravida 5, para 3, AB 1. You’d think after the first time, she’d have figured out how it all works.

*shrug*

September must be a really busy month, because a disproportionate number of the people I know celebrate their birthdays in June. My own daughter will be eight years old on the 16th, so I can attest to the alluring power of the ninth month of the year. Of course, I’ll officially be a thirtysomething on the 26th, a fact which both excites me and fills me with dread.

For my thirtieth birthday last year, I had a mild freak-out moment in which I realized that I approached this milestone without having accomplished any of my career goals. For the next eleven months and three days, I periodically reassessed those goals, a process which eventually involved pulling out high school yearbooks and reflecting on a period in my life in which I seemed more sure of myself.

At the age of 14, I started and became the president of my high school’s Future Health Professionals of America. At that time, I had a friend who was struggling with leukemia and decided I would dedicate my life to finding a cure. I changed my mind in the AP Biology class I took my junior year, after a field trip to the morgue. The stainless steel exam tables and overpowering stench of decomposing human tissue helped create an atmosphere devoid of comfort, which, given the violent circumstances in which many of the bodies had arrived there, seemed entirely appropriate. This was well before CSI made forensics seem glamorous, and when I announced to my mother my decision to work with the dead as a forensic pathologist, she was fairly horrified. As I recall, my guidance counselor’s reaction was similar, but I digress. What I’m getting at is that medicine has always interested me, for as long as I can remember. Then, somewhere along the way, the desire to have a career in the Humanities cropped up.

My Dad was genuinely angry with me for deciding against medical school, which only seemed to fuel my indignation. I enjoyed what I was studying, of course, but I did waffle a bit. I’d meet with academic advisors and tell them about the lingering, nagging desire to go into medicine. As I got older, their advice became progressively less encouraging, and I eventually settled for a career in writing advertising copy. That wouldn’t last.

For the past four years, various circumstances have put me in the hospital setting in many different capacities, all of which have been either directly in or related to the emergency room. I dare not trivialize what actual doctors and nurses deal with, so I won’t say anything like, “I know what goes on.” I don’t. But I have a better idea now than I did before. Because of this, I feel better equipped to make the decision than I did at 18.

So, it’s now less than a month before my 31st birthday, and I’m seriously (seriously-seriously, and not merely talking about it) considering getting my prerequisites, taking a few refresher courses, and giving it an honest go. I am well aware of the fact that it’s not an easy path to take, and that being a nontraditional student will make things infinitely more difficult. But, as I read on a website devoted to this subject, “I’m going to be 45 regardless, so I can either be 45 and be a doctor, or I can be 45 and be something else.”

So, we’ll see, I guess. Wish me luck (or, if you feel the need, leave a comment telling me I’m nuts. It wouldn’t be the first time)!

The Powers That Be™ have decided to turn my old office into a pelvic examination room for the nurse practitioners/physician’s assistants running our Non-Acute Care, who apparently refused to do them behind the curtained exam areas they’re currently using. I mean, who cares if the doctors routinely perform them over in the main department under similar circumstances on an hourly basis? This place sees more rotten cooch than every hourly-rate motel in a twenty-mile radius combined, not that I’m keeping track. All these sick cats make it impossible for us to meet that guaranteed 30-minute turnaround time if we only see them in the ED, so they had to find a new home for me in order to wrangle these times under control. The NPs/PAs are none too thrilled about this, and while I was initially quite pleased by the idea that I’d be completely removed from their petty bickering and/or butchering of the English language, I now have nothing to write about in my blog.

My new office, which is twice the size of the office I was sharing with someone, has its own bathroom (complete with a shower stall; it used to belong to a doctor) and a window that affords me a view of some unmanicured hedges and the emergency room parking lot. My former officemate is across the hall in an office so big, you could easily fit three or four people in it. As happy as we both are to be removed from the stupidity we’ve been subjected to each day, we’re both already missing it. There are no patients, no other staff down here… it’s like Siberia, only sanitized for your protection.

I should be careful what I wish for, I know, but I’d give almost anything to hear a double-negative or someone squawking over misplaced blue-dots on the patient’s charts right now. In the absence of anything more entertaining going on during my day, I’ve begun chatting with webbots. Mine is a simple existence:

[20:06] me: What’s my name!
[20:06] SmarterChild: You’re Pookie.
[20:06] me: Say it! Say my name!
[20:06] SmarterChild: Um… Do what?
[20:06] me: Say my name!
[20:06] SmarterChild: Uh… No.
[20:06] me: Why?
[20:06] SmarterChild: Just because. Trust me on this.
[20:06] me: Okay, who am I?
[20:06] SmarterChild: You told me your name was Pookie.
[20:06] me: Ha! you said it!

Here lately, it has occurred to me that I’m losing my ability to empathize with some of our patients. Many of you who read my blog are doctors or nurses, and you’ve all undoubtedly experienced this at some point in your careers. The very limited and indirect capacity in which I deal with patients means it’s taken a bit longer for me to realize that I’ve become desensitized. Frankly, it disturbs me. Today, however, I came across a chart that has reminded me of what it is we’re all here to do, regardless of the role we play in doing it. I’d like to share the story with you now.

Friends, readers - meet Susie.

Susie is a 21-year-old homemaker and mother of two. Like you and me, Susie enjoys the occasional glass of Hennessy and meeting men in the club. And why shouldn’t she? No man (or woman) is an island, right? She works hard and needs to cut loose a few nights a week, just like everybody else. But Susie has a secret, a real problem that kept her from her usual activities Tuesday night. And it’s not a problem I think anyone should take lightly.

Susie has no lungs.

That’s right. What you and I take for granted, Susie wishes she had, more than almost anything else in the world. When she presented to our emergency room yesterday morning, she was feeling a little short of breath, a likely result of having no way of moving air into or out of her body. Where the rest of us have a fully-functioning, complete respiratory system, my friend Susie has a void that she’d very much like to fill. You see, her lungs were taken from her during a routine tonsillectomy a few weeks ago by a surgeon who – I’m guessing – didn’t realize his mistake until poor Susie’s lungs were in a tray at her bedside. By then, it was too late to put them back in their rightful place. Susie went home that afternoon distraught over the loss of her body’s most efficient method of moving oxygen into her bloodstream. But Susie’s a fighter. She didn’t let her missing lungs hold her down, no sir! By midweek, she mustered the courage and the strength to rejoin her compadres on the club circuit. Hell, she may have managed to squeeze in some quality time with her kids! What a gal!

Unfortunately, it’s that gumption of which I speak that led to Susie’s downfall. How could she have possibly known that, in a humid, smoke-filled club, the absence of her lungs would interfere with her ability to have a good time? The pain must’ve been excruciating. I mean, can you imagine being in that environment without any lungs? Folks, I’ve played in bars where there is plenty of smoke, and I have two lungs and find it difficult to breathe well into the next day sometimes. In her position, I’d have called for an ambulance, too.

Fortunately, our doctors and nurses were here to help her. Not by giving her new lungs, of course, although that would’ve been the ideal solution. As she lay helplessly on the stretcher, she summoned the last dregs of strength left in her pain-addled body and motioned for her doctor. Sensing the urgency, he stopped in the middle of an intubation and rushed to her side.

Her strength was fading fast. She looked up at him with those doleful eyes, which were brimming with tears. The doctor squeezed her hand in his, hoping she still had enough in her to make one last request.

“What is it, Susie?” he asked.
 
Feebly, she croaked, “I need… I need…“

“Come on, Susie, you can beat this! I know you can, and I’m going to help you. I just need to know what it is you need.”

“I… need…“

“Yes?”

“Percocet.“

In the interest of time, I will truncate the remainder of the story. Susie did not get the Percocet her body so sorely needed, but that didn’t preclude a happy ending: fifteen minutes, a liter of saline and a work excuse later, she was right as rain.
 
Tell me that doctors and nurses aren’t miracle workers, and I’m positive Susie will tell you otherwise.

Truly, I am inspired.

“Turkey?! Do what? That ain’t no country! It’s lunchmeat!”

- Hospital employee, expressing either her disbelief or disapproval of the Memphis in May committee’s choice of honor country for this year’s celebration

Arrival and triage, 19:23: I descend upon the hallowed halls of thine esteemed Emergency Department this blustery April eve and beseech thee to attend to mine most distressing situation: a fractured – nay, a shattered talon sculpted from the finest acrylic powder, which hath hardened upon my very finger, encrusted with dazzling jewels the color of deep pools of azure.

Waiting room, 19:27: In the midst of thine sobbing charges I rest upon a throne of Naugahyde™ as I ponder aloud mine own cruel existence, waiting ever so patiently for such time as I may present to the friendly physician the origins of this most damnable suffering. What of the withered man clutching at his chest, gasping hungrily for breath? Doth not the same air tantalize mine own nostrils, or pass over mine own skin as smooth as the sigh of an angel? Methinks his time has come; let him slip peacefully into that long night! My slender and graceful hand be outstretched before you with but four merry decorations. The fifth lay sorrowfully betwixt the contents of mine bejeweled and embroidered leather satchel. Cannst thou find it within the confines of thine cold heart to rejoin him with his brethren? 

Waiting room, 19:55: Perchance, fair triage nurse, thou hast not heard mine many cries for help. Verily, I say unto thee:  mine pleas, which remain as yet unhearkened, can now only be answered by the very God who hath placed me here, the very God who hath forsaken me in mine own time of desperate need… the very God who, in His infinite wisdom, hath the foresight to create Lortab.  Get thee to thine Omnicell quickly, m’ lady, and dispense such a quantity that shall put an end to my suffering at once!

What say you? Tylenol?! I am vexed. Vexed, I say, for to swallow such a foul potion shall cause mine throat to swell as though inhabited by a thousand warted toads! I shall depart from thine dingy quarters, wastrel, but not one moment before thou hast placed in mine hands the very thing which was promised me. It has been so decreed that all those who come here shall not spend one moment beyond one half of one hour in wait for reprieve from such unfathomable pain, and I stand before thee now at two-and-thirty cursed minutes since the time of mine most unfortunate arrival. A gift card I was promised, and a gift card I shall receive! Go now, and bring me back that which will serve to fuel mine gilded chariot, or perhaps place a morsel of nourishment upon the tongues of mine many children, the very products of my loins! Aye.

Ne’er again shall I give thee the honour of my blessed patronage! I shall cry from the highest of mountaintops in a voice so shrill as to be heard for many counties, far and wide: A pox upon thee and thine families!

Fare thee well, yon knaves!

:end:

Yesterday, I worked for nine hours to close out the month for my hospital’s emergency room. The numbers I calculated were far lower than they would have been had our nurses charted properly. I could go into how neglecting to document the stop time on an IV medication results in massive monetary losses for the hospital, but it only holds my own interest through the end of the work day (and even then, only barely). The omissions notwithstanding, we’re doing quite well for ourselves. Satisfied with my spreadsheet, I came home and worked for another two hours on my own month-end figures. While the ER now has enough room in its budget for several more nurses and EMTs, I don’t have enough room in my personal budget for such luxuries as a telephone, two-ply toilet paper, or meals that don’t come in cellophane wrappers.
 
My office is situated inside the Non-Acute Care suite, which is across from the main Emergency Department. On any given day, I am the unwitting participant in many conversations, with topics ranging from the mundane (“Dayyyy-nuh! I done boilt sixty pounds o’ crawfish this weekend… WITH ORANGES INSTEAD OF LEMONS!”)  to the grave and serious (“I don’t think I can afford the Dooney [and Bourke] purse I needed to go with my outfit for the party this Saturday, so I guess I’ll go with the Coach bag instead”). The conversations of the latter variety always intrigue me, because they’re almost always held between the only employees of the hospital who earn less than I do. I listen intently, positive I’ll be able to extract some piece of sage financial advice; after all, some of these purses are as much as my rent! I must be working in a den of budgetary wizards, judging by the number of Lexuses (Lexi?) and BMWs I see in the general associate lot! So how is it that I am making more money and driving a Taurus with a crack in the windshield?

The answer is simple: because I’m honest. I don’t have to elaborate any more than that. Fundamentally, that’s all there is to it. Those silly values my mother worked so hard to instill in my brothers and myself seem to have stuck. As a result, I pay for my own health insurance, my own food, my own utilities, my own vehicle, my own housing, my own everything. As I try to stretch my last $6 over the next four days, I must deal with the fact that my income level is too high for any sort of financial assistance beyond that which my mother can lend to get me from one paycheck to the next, not that I want it. What do I want? That’s simple, too: for people who are working their asses off to have something to show for their efforts besides grey hair, and stiff penalties for people who abuse the system. And maybe an iMac.

My mother has graciously offered to subsidize my telephone usage by adding me to her family plan (thanks again, Mom!), but I’m afraid there’s going to be plenty of chafing and Value Menu fare in my immediate future. The job market here sucks for anyone who isn’t a nurse or a truck driver, so it looks like I’m stuck for the time being. Of course, based on my research, I am strongly considering pregnancy as an occupation until something better comes through. 

Ba-da-BING!

Mmm, baby. I love it when you mix Old Spice with Brut, you know that? There’s just something about that exact combination of fragrances that gets my blood a-pumpin’. It also excites me to no end when you wear those briefs with the leopard print, ‘cause that’s just manly. Swollen from five straight days of binge drinking, your belly kind of hangs over the band, there, but it’s okay, sugar. I like my men soft. In fact, seeing your perspiration glisten in the flickering glow of the cherry-scented candles as it runs down your paunch and pools in your navel, well… let’s just say it’s time to break out the Usher CDs.

You like that, baby? I knew you would. What’s that? You want to see what’s under my thick terrycloth robe? Oh, you’re a naughty one, aren’t you? Patience, baby… patience. Before we commence to lovemaking, there are a few things we need nearby… things that are not only conducive to sweet, sweet lovin’, but are downright vital. In fact, even if Tom Cruise himself showed up at my door… even if he was armed with a chilled bottle of Boone’s Farm Fuzzy Navel and a book of poetry by Bell, Biv, or DeVoe… if he didn’t have the necessary accoutrements, he could hang it up. You see, what I’m talking about are two items that will cause even the most frigid female to cry out in orgasmic bliss the moment you present them to her. Diamonds and pearls? Chocolates and champagne? Lingerie and a vial of Spanish Fly? No, baby… this:

I know what you’re thinking. The way to any reasonable woman’s heart is through her stomach, but that’s not exactly what I had in mind. Word on the street has it that, when coated in the right amount of hot sauce, souse is a powerful arousal tool. That is why I stand before you in my seersucker housedress begging you to cut off a slice of it to place directly on my lady bits. It’s time to take it to the next level, baby. Will you do this for me, to prove how much you love me? Oh, you’re the best. Yes… just like that. Mmmm, yeah.

Hmmm. That’s interesting. I wasn’t told it would burn like this. Let’s just work past it, baby. Mmmm, you know I like it when you… hey, wait! What the…?! Ow! No, don’t take it off… maybe you’re supposed to work it in. In fact, put a bit more hot sauce on it. That’s better. Actually, it’s kind of numb now. Did you get it in me? I don’t think that’s supposed to happen, actually. Yeah, just see if you can fish it out. What? My labia are swollen shut? Well, this is a fine how-do-you-do! I guess we should go straight the ER and let the doctor find out where we went wrong, because I can’t for the life of me figure it out. In fact, call 9-1-1. I don’t want to take any chances, here. Thanks, baby. Maybe when I get back, we can pick up where we left off. Feel free to make yourself a sandwich with the leftover souse. Wouldn’t want it to go to waste, now would we?

:fin:

(The best part of this entire visit was the discharge note sent home with the patient. At the bottom, in all caps, it said, “DO NOT PLACE ANYTHING IN OR ON VAGINA UNLESS INDICATED ON PACKAGING.”)