Episode 1 & 2 summary: In episode 1 and 2 we meet Olivia and we learn about her living arrangements and why she chose it. We learn that she is in a process of transition and in that time she learns that she loves to tell stories from her past. People love to hear them and a YouTube channel is born.
For more details, if you haven’t already, read episode 1 and 2. If you’re caught up please join me as Olivia shares her first story with us…
Episode 3:
I’m 20 years old again. The beats of the cardiac monitors in the patient’s rooms come alive. The dings from patients call bells can be heard coming from different directions of the emergency room. The nurse’s station is a giant circle that’s in the middle of the whole floor. The patient rooms are wrapped around the nurse’s station, which forms into a circle in the middle of an open floor plan. They are all private rooms and from what I can see by the patient tracker hanging at the nurse’s station, the rooms are all full.
Two minutes into getting report from the dayshift nursing assistant I knew what needed to be done on the unit. I jumped right into the swing of things fitting into the frenzy that surrounded me. I helped my colleagues complete the patient orders the doctors were putting in. I drew blood, EKGs were completed, I helped people to the bathroom and helped with applying splints on fractures. The emergency room is what I call a rotating door. As fast as one patient is discharged, another is brought back from the waiting room.
Out of every 10 patients that walk into the emergency room, about five have a legitimate reason for being there. The other five are there for bogus reasons. Meaning they’re minor and could’ve waited to see their family doctor. Instead, they chose what they think is a faster way to seek treatment, and so they come to the ER.
Time flew by and before I knew it, my stomach was talking to me. I was hungry and ready for my lunch break. I saw a coworker over by the nurse’s station and headed that way. I wanted to know if we should start our breaks and if I could go first. As I got closer to my coworker, the atmosphere of the emergency room changed.
From the corner of my eye, a security officer was running our way yelling, “We need someone outside! We have a gunshot victim.” The doctor that was sitting behind the nurse’s station immediately jumped up and called for the closest nurse to follow him. I knew I needed to help them, so I grabbed an empty litter that was near me, and I quickly walked right behind them. I had gloves in my pocket. I always carry gloves in my pocket for this reason. Every day in the emergency room is unpredictable. Having gloves in my pocket was my way of controlling something I really had no control of.
TO BE CONTINUED…
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M.C. Addington 