This is an ongoing series called, “Janitor MD” in which I talk about my experiences working in a hospital as a housekeeping supervisor. You can see previous entries in this series at this link.
I walk in the shadows of the greats. Doctors, Nurses, Registered Nurses and countless specialists fill the long halls. Between us not much passes. A mixed conversation with a nurse or two but nothing of substance. I prefer it that way in all honesty. Because it allows me to watch them. To see them. And to watch them perform their craft.
It is in those moments where you get a chance to catch a glance at their faces. Seeing the worn lines of furrowed brows and exhausted stares as they work to ply their craft day after day is something to watch. Too often people rush through life without taking a moment to watch, listen and simply soak in the world around them.
In a hospital there’s a deluge waiting. Listening to the voices from room to room. Watching the families and visitors walking the hallways with varying expressions washing through their face. Seeing tears as one is wheeled into surgery. Walking by as a family receives the worst. Seeing the nurses struggle to move beyond whatever is pulling them down that day.
Seeing the young prance around the hallway as the elder shuffles behind a walker entombed in oxygen. The fascinating stories you imagine as the Emergency Room lobby hourly cleaning beings, seeing into the eyes of the scared and angry. Barely contained emotions bottled with but some old newspaper and a stretched rubber band.
Watching it explode and fly high into the sky is something else.
In the hallways and rooms there are moments shared. If you’re walking to fast or running towards the end of the line you might miss the raw humanity on display. It is not a moment to gawk but a moment to understand.
We all have those moments in the hallway, whatever place we hold in the halls of the hospital.
