The Nurses Station and Cutting Strings.

If you have not read the last couple entries:
Read this first
Read this second
Read this last
Things will make more sense that way.


The secretary picked up my bag and we walked out of the room and into "The Unit". It was about 4pm at this point (Allen and I had left the house around noon). The secretary gave all my things to the front desk clerk and said we still needed to "check them in". Thankfully she let me keep my blanket.....that zebra blanket.

She had me sit right across from the nurses station. I didn't know this then but NOW I realize this too was probably a dumb place to sit me.




The patients tend to gather around the nurses station for various reasons. They want someone to watch them shave, they want their meds....early...or double the dose they are prescribed. They need someone to listen to them rant and rave about not wanting to take their antidepressants for fear the FBI will begin tracking them (true story.). They want laundry soap, to use the phone or snacks. Or some of them are having panic attacks and are anxiously awaiting their med while the nurse says "I'll get it when I finish this." "This" being a piece of paper work. True Story.

I listened to all of this ranting and needing with wide eyes and a nervous stare. I watched as an elderly lady in a hospital gown paced all the halls, in numerical order without stopping or slowing down at all. She had graying/blonde hair that was in a long braid down her back. A tech assigned to follow her could hardly keep up.

I got some nerve up after sitting there for a while and asked when I would be able to get into my room. A nice lady said she wasn't sure but that she needed to see me to go through all my stuff. She took me to a small conference room with no door across from the chaos at the nurses station. She meticulously went through all my things. Every now and then stopping and explaining why she had to hold on to this or that item. I couldn't have my hair dryer.....the cord, I had a small lip gloss that looked like the container may be glass....might cut myself. She got to a pair of my pants with a drawstring and asked "Do you want me to just pull these out and save them or can I just cut them out?" "Cut them I guess." I replied. I watched as she went through all my clothes and cut out the drawstring OR the strings attached to your clothes to hang them. She asked me what kind of shoes I had on. I said they are slide ons. She said "Good because we take shoe strings too, then we just replace them with a couple zip ties."



This was true and by the end of the week they had run out of zip ties (you got four total), and so people were walking around with the tongue of their shoes flapping in the wind. If it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

Then she took me to a room and asked me to remove my shorts. I did and then she had me turn around, then shake my panties so she could make sure I wasn't hiding anything. I immediately felt about five years old and humiliated. The woman was great about it but I still just wanted to crawl under the carpet. She had me remove my shirt and shake my bra in the same manner.

She took my blood pressure it was 150/90. She asked if that was normal for me. No I said. She shook her head understandingly and then asked me to go back and wait until they called me for my room.

I sat back down and watched much of the same chaos from before. I was scared to death someone was going to talk to me. One of the crazies you know?



I sat for another half hour or so and went up to the desk to ask again when could I get in my room. The nurse said it would be after dinner, by now it was about 5pm. The nurse asked me in front of all the other patients standing around if I had ever been "in a place like this before." I said no and he said that the first time in a place like that could be scary......and bla bla bla...... While he was talking I locked eyes with a young man there. I said to myself surely that can't be?! Then I was brought back to the awkward conversation with the nurse. He was continuing to explain how scary it could be for me when I finally cut him off and said. "Ya know what is even more awkward about this moment, the fact that we are having this conversation in front of everyone here." Several patients laughed and then I looked over again to be sure of who I thought I had recognized. At that same moment he looked at me and I knew it was him and he gave me a knowing look that said he realized who I was too. It was an OLD friend from school that I had not seen in years. Initially I thought he worked there but he was a patient. I was baffled. He asked why I was there and I just said Makily and he hugged me. He knew without me saying a another word.

He left that day just an hour or so later and I do hope that he is doing well now.

Once he left I decided I would venture into the "day room" where other patients were sitting watching TV. I sat there for a few moments when a man asked me why I had my blanket. I told him I didn't have a room yet. He told me I reminded him of Linus.



Some people laughed....I did too, I actually agreed. At this point I was so attached to the damn blanket though they could have called me anything. I wasn't putting it down....not yet. Then he asked me in front of everyone why I was there. I was taken aback for a moment when I realized I had not yet decided what I was going to say to that question. I thought about it and then said

"I was going to blow my head off."

Total Silence.

Then he asks what I was going to do that with, and I said "why with a gun of course." He told me he had too many felony convictions and wasn't allowed to own a gun. Then asked how I had avoided having any felony convictions.

blink

BLINK.

I said "Well I've just never committed a crime?"

The whole room erupted with laughter.

more later.