A haunting cry

When you hear a scream, it shakes you. When you hear a scream in a hospital you are disposed to run towards the commotion. In the year and a half of doing my job in Environmental Services (translated – hospital housekeeping) I have seen it all from one end of the spectrum to the other. I’ve seen nurses running to a code call in a neurological intensive care unit as they scramble to save a life that shouldn’t be ending. I’ve grabbed the wall of the hallway in our labor and delivery unit as a code was called sending every member of the medical staff into a carefully controlled panic as they rushed past me to the room where death was knocking.

I sometimes imagine that I’ve seen too much. From our neonatal intensive care unit to the cardiac unit where death visits far too often to the various other intensive care units that give new meaning to the term, “the waiting game”. It is played out as families’ watch over machines; friends look into blank stares and the never ending moments of pause as another soul departs our hallowed halls to the afterlife.

I have seen people collapse into tears as the word is passed to them that hope no longer visits and the future is far more uncertain now. I’ve walked by and seen bright faces fade into sadness as reality slams the shades of the future down on those that wait and watch.

It is an odd position to be in at times and it lends itself to my own life as I learn how to navigate emotional pitfalls and heartbreak. I take solace in that I will do what I can as limited as I am in my position. I’m not a doctor or a nurse. I’m not clergy or counselor. But perhaps a look or a comforting glance will do the job.

Today was when I most wanted to reach out and hold back the torrent of despair that had fallen. I was standing at an elevator and heard the scream from the staircase behind me. I had never heard a scream as such in my time at the hospital. I carefully and cautiously walked up the floors and found a young woman in tears and rage. I asked her if she was ok. I reached out and touched her shoulder and asked again to ensure there was someone here for her. Through all this I simply wanted to stand with her and help.

Such is not my place. Rules and regulations prevent me from filling some part of that void. After she said she had family here I nodded and told her to take all the time she needed. I walked away.

I kept walking the floor back and forth keeping a side eye on the staircase and waiting for her to return. When she did I passed by her on my way out confident she would be ok. She said two words that gave me some warmth in that dark moment.

“Thank you.” To which I nodded quietly and walked on my way to my required duties.

Such are the experiences in the halls of a hospital.

and now to the results -

1 – Lose it or Die
307 calories burned doing 30 minutes of moderate swimming. WIN!

2 – Get out!
Um…Fail.

3 – Write it like you want it
Still nothing.

4 – Rock out to more
Introduced to what sounds like a great album from Mary J Blige “Stronger” via NPR Music. WIN!

5 – Get Smart-er
I’ve tossed two books from the “Wild Card” series that was edited by George RR Martin. The content was a little too much for my tastes and boundaries. Currently browsing the newly annotated Dracula. WIN!

Total Win/Loss for today – 3/5
Ugh = completion rate.
Grade = Murg.

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader by James Luceno

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A fairly acceptable continuation of the adventures with introduction of new characters to further flesh out the story of Darth Vader. Characters are ok. I say ok because some of them are just mind blowingly stupid. The Vader moments were we get to see inside his mind and his early interactions with the Emperor are great and really add something to the legend and story of the Dark Lord of the Sith. A good summer read that won’t change your life and might bring a smile to your face.

View all my reviews >>

Working in a hospital brings so much to the senses it can be overload at times. Discerning each and pushing those momentary moments into the back of the mind is the best way of dealing with all the things you see. I come home and I spend a few moments rewinding what I saw, smelled and felt in the halls of the hospital.

When you walk through the emergency department you can see every story playing out on the faces of those in the rooms. You hear the whispered mutters and the mechanical speeches of doctors and nurses as they try to and make it to the end of the day before the real rush will bust through the doors. There are moments of hilarity and smiles shared between knowing workers.

There are those times when you see a room dark and a sheet covering what was once a life. You know that the once beating heart has stilled. And you can only silently pray for whoever it was and move on to the duties that await you.

Some of the housekeepers I work with have said there are “spirits” in those rooms when death has just recently robbed the soul from body. They talk about a weight that pushes on them as they clean. Some tell you they don’t like it. I understand. When someone is alive, there is brightness about the room, a living light. When that is dimmed there is a certain confusion about where that person has gone as the body grows cold.

Some fall back on cultural explanations. Others religious. And still few refuse to dwell on that loss and push forward, ignoring whatever may have happened in that room and simply focus on cleaning the room to prepare for the next visitor.

It is that transition that signals the return of life, albeit an oddly morbid and temporary reminder. For a life to be saved, one may die. At times it can get too heady for me to wrap my mind around. I can only soldier on, cleaning rooms and knowing that life rumbles onwards on each of the floors. Babies are born into this cold world and lives are saved with hands of heroes every day in the halls of my hospital.

And sometimes, that’s what gets me through until the closing bell.

_____

National Blog Writing Month (nablowrimo) is underway! 22 bloggers from around the world are united in blogging once a day! You should read them and check ‘em out every day!  See more details at the site here or look at the list below!

NaBloWriMo Bloggers

• groovygrrl
• I’m Not Hannah
• The Kittalog
• Indian Food Rocks!
• Cooking and Me
• The Way I Always Was
• Jugalbandi
• Culinary Colorado
• Digging In
• Thistle Dew Farm
• Mimi On The Move
• Enjoy Indian Food
• Siri’s Corner
• Conch-to-be
• Nags of a Similar Ilk
• Damn Yankee, Vermont
• Aaron Delay
• Fun Climbs Around the World
• Seriously Wonderful
• Straight From Hel
• Use Real Butter
• Here it is!!!

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.

Life is a delicate balance. Each day we awake to a new dawn, the sun breaking across the horizon. The fresh air of the morning breathes across the plains and down from the mountains. And we, humanity in all its glory carefully wish in our hearts that today, just today…we wouldn’t screw it all up again like yesterday.

Life is a beautiful thing. Working in a hospital we are always reminded of the birth of a new baby with a special tone. At each moment that sounds my heart warms at the prospect of the continuance of this world. We come before…and they will follow us after.

In the interim between life and death there is much to be learned, experienced and done. Each of us have an average expiration date that God above only knows. For those one hundred (many times less) years it is up to us where we go.

I walk in the shadows of greatness each day. As a manager of a housekeeping crew I follow behind the nurses, CNAs’, doctors and endless specialists and support staff keeping the healing power of the building at full blaze. Walking through the warmly lit halls of my building I am witness to extreme pain, suffering and sights I will never be able to erase. Intensive care units with burn victims, heart patients and those slowly coming out of surgery. The emergency room is a unique hive of activity and focus…but calm compared to how television shows portray them.

In each area I silently walk, doing the job most would raise an eyebrow at if asked, “Is this a job you’d like to do?” followed by a, “Uh, no!”.

I cleaned a room where a man had sat for six months before finally succumbing to the call of death knocking on his proverbial door. Standing for just a moment and realizing that a life had been lost on the bed I stood beside made it far more real than I imagined. In life and in death life is still just that. A life.

I carefully cleaned in silence, mourning a life I did not know.

We cleaned rooms where babies are born and new life elicits that uniquely powerful first cry. You smile knowing there is a full road waiting for that child.

Working in the shadows of greatness is humbling but it can also inspire to see the focus, the intensity and the care in the eyes of those that give it. We laugh and we are stilled to near tears at times.

Such is life and death in the halls of a hospital.