I started out on a rather humble level at thirteen. Maybe I'd read a book where cute interns fell all over themselves drooling over some starry eyed fresh faced teeny bopper volunteer. Must have been way into fiction back then. Anyway I signed up and the matronly Supervisor of Volunteers soon had me sitting around a table sewing dolls of some kind for some reason. Did I mention I don't sew? And I didn't want to learn, seeing as a sewing circle didn't seem a handy way to meet interns, after all.
So call it an inconvenient reprieve. They signed me up as a "victim" for the emergency crisis practice drill. Such a hot summer day, we were on cots in the hostile sun waiting to be triaged by the (hopefully handsome) firefighters/paramedics. I was really into it, having passed junior high drama class and even making drama club, but by the time they got around to me, it had kind of gone to my head, and I couldn't even remember my own phone number by then, much less what bones were supposed to be broken, wounds festering, etc. Or I feigned it. Go figure, there were a few puzzled hospital personnel who were not impressed with my performance of a scatterbrained fake casualty. And surprisingly, no hot date with a first responder either (never mind that I'd never had a date of any kind at all yet).
It must have been obvious that I wasn't just a one trick pony because the next thing I was assigned was greeter at the front desk so I could smile and shepherd haphazard visitors. Even though I have absolutely no sense of direction, I could do this, as the elevator was right behind me, so I could look up a patient name, give a room number, and nod knowingly to the elevator over my shoulder. One Saturday a middle aged wiseguy came up to me and asked me what exactly I was doing there. "Oh," I said, "I tell people where to go." He started laughing and said, "You do! Well, that's everybody's dream job."
I did all this with such utter finesse, that I was promoted to the medical floor pretty quickly! Soon I was running countless samples up to the Lab on the 4th floor and refilling ice water for patients at St. Joseph Hospital. Somehow I graduated quickly to feeding the helpless, emptying bedpans for the bed-bound, changing beds and giving back massages in the evenings to relax weary muscles and bones and souls into merciful, if constantly interrupted, sleep.
But often these functions were punctuated by the very grim reality of people in pain, people on the edge, people with needs far beyond what I had ever imagined. At the far end of the 3rd floor was the Ward, with beds for men who were indigent, or at least without sufficient insurance. On my first day making myself useful by going up and down the hall with a cart full of ice and water, I finally found myself in The Ward, going from patient to patient, refilling their metal pitchers, when suddenly a hand of bones shot up from a bed and grabbed mine. Startled, I looked down into the bed where a wisp of what once had been a man lay, and as his eyes penetrated mine, he almost inaudibly gasped, "Help me! Help me! They're taking my body away from me!" I was paralyzed by what this virtual skeleton had just uttered. Or was it by the sheer inexplicable strength of the grip he held me in? But then he turned away and released me as his strength and voice both faded into eternity. I never knew his name, but I will never forget his anguished face.
Does it make any sense to you at all that on many days, tiny me was "in charge" of our tiny ER? Me either. But there I was in the diminutive (2 exam tables!) room across from the hospital kitchen and next door to the Morgue. Dr. Andy Nowakowski was the official Elgin Police Department Liaison Physician, so accidents, crimes, DOA's, etc. were supposedly sent to St. Jo's instead of to the newer, bigger Sherman Hospital a few blocks away. Hmmm.
At any rate, when I was there, always by myself, if someone came in (no advance notice back then--- no cell phones, etc.- ambulance or walk in, there would just suddenly be people showing up at the door). So I would immediately call up to the 4th floor Surgery Department, and a Resident Dr. accompanied by a Surgical Nurse would jump on the somewhat rickety service elevator and appear a few minutes later to save the day. Or at least try to. To pass the time when there were no pressing emergencies to deal with, I would assemble surgical trays for the sterilizer. Some days were slow. Some busy.
I got used to different situations and was always able to be calm regardless of the degree of injury. Until that one day. They brought a baby in from an auto accident (This was an age of no seat belts, no car seats, not much in the way of accident prevention; but according to my perception there was a heck of a lot less traffic, less idiots on the road, at least that's how I remember it. Your mileage may vary.)
So I had them put the baby on the exam table while we waited for the Dr. and Nurse to appear. And as soon as they did, I bolted from the room. The one and only time I ever did. That tiny little nose had been severed and was only attached by a tiny flap, and it seemed unbearable to me that this vulnerable itty bitty human had to suffer like that. I had to leave.
I'm sure there were many people that came to that room in greater agony than that little soul, but for some reason, it just hit me harder than anything else had. Perhaps because most patients were adults. Ironically, 10 years later I would find myself, arms loaded with a laundry basket full of wet clothes to hang in the sunshine, swinging open the back door of my house, and knocking my own 18 month old baby boy off the porch, thus severing his nose. The Dr. who was stitching him up told my husband that he was way more concerned with me than the baby because I was so unhinged. Life is weird, no? So sorry, Adam.
The tiny ER where I was stationed was next to the tiny Morgue, which had a door with a window of frosted glass, so you couldn't see in clearly, no doubt a good idea. But you could see motion. Very quickly that summer I had become convinced that I was destined to be a Doctor who would save the world. So suddenly the ER and neighborly Morgue had great significance for me.
One day I came in from outside through the Ambulance Entrance, and stopped in front of the Morgue door because I could tell there was activity within, and I was intrigued and fascinated. Until. Then the loud sound of a saw and cracking sounds shot out from that now gruesome to me room and I bolted, crying out the Ambulance Entrance to escape the grim reality. Somehow I knew that they were doing a cranial section of an autopsy. And I was certain that even though I had been able to handle blood and guts and tears and screams, that was a bridge too far, never going to be something I could deal with. We all have our limits, right?
Surprisingly enough, I did end up going back into the Morgue itself several times that summer. Turns out that Felix, the Pathology Tech from Puerto Rico, took and interest in my MD aspirations, or so I thought, so he would take me upstairs into the Pathology Lab and downstairs into the Morgue when no one else was around to show me around. I still vividly remember the first dead body I saw laying on the metal slab in the middle of the room, a young woman of 28, with very black hair and very yellow jaundiced skin. Just thinking of what her family must be going through was a shock. There were other bodies, of course, but isn't there always something about the first that you can't forget? I am so grateful to have never witnessed a young child there.
I don't know if those kind of places should be some kind of hallowed or not, but I do think the dead deserve respect. Apparently Felix felt otherwise, as I soon enough found out. He was not actually interested in medical goals, or dead bodies, but in young girls and their bodies. Luckily I had no problem in bolting from that situation, but I soon noticed the Morgue being used as a rendezvous place for someone else, and my chilling time with the corpses was over.
Morgue. Puerto Rican, Felix. 28 year old
Cuban Missile Crisis
Frank Pascente.
Later working there Christmas break
Chapel. Father Heineman. Convent.
Chapel. Father Heineman. Convent.
Mom said car automatically drove to the hospital
1500 hour pin.
I think the whole experience made me realize I had purpose.
1500 hour pin.
I think the whole experience made me realize I had purpose.