Last night, halfway through another graveyard shift at Small Town Hospital, I had the misfortune of meeting a woman who made me wonder (once again) why the hell I put up with this job (short answer: it pays better than minimum wage and I can study during my down time).
If you ever find yourself in the emergency room for something that isn’t really an emergency (ie- you’re not gasping for air, seizing, bleeding profusely) remember that you’re called a patient for a reason.
This woman missed the memo. She presented at 2:45am with a leg injury. She thought her leg was broken, thus she needed an x-ray. This does not qualify as an emergency, but it does warrant a trip to the ER. Being that it was 2:45 and not a full moon ( I swear this urban legend is true, we’re always extra busy when the moon is full) the Er was empty. However we had just discharged the last of about 20 patients and the nurses had hella charting to do.
At 2:50 leg injury woman started loudly expressing her annoyance to no one in particular. “What’s taking so long. What are they doing back there? This is ridiculous.” Then she addressed me, “Ma’am (I hate when I’m called Ma’am. But I also hate Miss. I can not be pleased in non-familiar addressments. Plus I was the only one there, it’s not like a simple “excuse me” would have confused me. [haha, poet!]), any idea how much longer it’ll be until I’m seen? I’m in a lot of pain.
Being the nice person I am, I called back to the nurses to remind them that leg injury woman was out front. “We’ll get to her when we get to her” was the response I received. Leg injury woman did not appreciate this answer.
She continued to loudly complain about the length of time and the lack of people in the waiting room. “There’s nobody here! Why is this taking so long?! If they’re no one here to see me I’ll come back tomorrow!”
Let’s examine that last statement. “I’ll come back tomorrow.” Last time I checked a visit to the emergency room was typically reserved for those situations where one simply cannot wait until tomorrow. I was tempted to ask why she was here at all. “It’s late and I’m tired” exclaimed Leg Injury Woman, “Ma’am is there anyone here? Because I can leave and come back, I don’t want to be sitting here all night.”
“There are nurses back there,” I said as sweetly as I could manage, “they’ll be out shortly, they know you’re waiting.” It was all I could do to not retort, “Well, I’m tired too lady and frankly if you’re so willing to wait until tomorrow why the hell are you here now bothering me?!”
But I’m a good employee and I held my tongue. In the next five minutes the nurse came to take her back to the triage room. Leg Injury Woman sat in my waiting room for a total of 15 minutes.
Fifteen-freaking-minutes.
Even more aggravating, after she spent the last 15 minutes complainingly loudly in my general direction about the lack of nurses and the horribly long wait, she was down right pleasant to the nurse.
The nurse who kept her waiting.
Explain to me the logic here.
On second thought, don’t even try. I’m fairly certain there isn’t any.
Please be nice to your receptionists. We’re paid to little to deal with ridiculousness.
Can We “Choose” To “Know?” August 25, 2008
I’ve been spending more time than usual lately contemplating ideas of marriage and commitment in relationships (no, I’m not getting married, nor do I plan on doing so in the near future). It’s just been on my mind recently, with graduate school preparation in full swing and more and more familiar faces popping up in the “engagements and weddings” section of the local papers.
And, yes, the whirlwind of my current relationship has played a role. I’m a girl. I can’t help but picture the man I’m currently dating as the otherwise faceless groom in my wedding fantasies. I can’t help but test the waters and engage in conversations about unconceived children and dream house floorplans. Maybe it’s weird, and maybe it breaks all the rules of a new relationship, but it’s fun. And so far, I’ve not scared him away…actually I think it’s probably done more to keep him around.
I love to dream about it, to plan it out in my head, but sometimes I wonder if I could pull it off. I mean, I want to someday, definitely, but at this point in my life it seems too limiting. Too….final. It’s scary to think about spending the next 60 years with a single person, almost as scary as it is to picture the next 60 years as a single person. And I wonder, what makes people realize they want to marry their significant other? I’ve been told by wise, married peoples that a good life partner is formed out of a compatible relationship. A strong friendship and common life goals and desires are a good backbone, and of course a good helping of sexual desire and respect for the other person are needed. But, you can have all that without have the butterflies. And you can have the butterflies without having the long term compatibility…but is it worth the sacrifice?
A marriage, I’ve been told, is a “choice to be committed to one person, all their faults and imperfections included.” A very fine explanation I feel, but let’s look at the word “choice” in this sentence. Maybe it’s the hopeless romantic in me, but it seems depressing to boil it down to a logical decision. It seems so cold, like a business contract, “The parties are in agreement on all major life-relation areas (ex: children, religion, politics, finances), respect and admire one another and enjoy the company of each other in both platonic and sexual situations; thus they have decided to merge their lives by way of this legally binding contract.”
Ugh.
And people DO have marriages like this, and they’re happy in them, and it’s perfectly OK because it works for them. But it just doesn’t sit well with me. Maybe I’m still too young and naïve about love, but I always imagined I’d marry my future husband because they’d be no way I couldn’t marry him. That there’d be some larger force at work that I didn’t completely understand or explain, and I’d basically not have a choice, I’d be with him forever because it was meant to be.
And I have to say, admitting that I believe in the concept of “meant to be” makes me feel a little too Charlotte York for my liking. It brings up the idea of “just knowing,” a concept I despise because I don’t think I’ll ever “just know.” I think too much to “just know” anything. Even things I should “just know” are subject for contemplation, like say the color of my eyes or my actual height…(blue or green? 5’7 and ¾ or 5’’8? I’m not 100% sure). And I’m supposed to “just know” that I found the right guy? No chance in hell.
But then, dear readers, am I forced to accept that my lot in love is to be one of those people who makes the “choice” to be in love/get married? Must I miss out on the larger force I’ve imagined? Or is there a possibly that in certain cases both can exist?
Can we “choose” to “just know?”
**Dear The Boy, please do not be worried. Not everything I blog is the result of an underlying problem. We are golden. I promise.