Post 188: Hospital Rounds

<buzz buzz buzz>

shhhh.

<buzz buzz buzz>

ugh.

<buzz buzz buzz>

That’s...that’s someone texting me.

I was woken by the sound of my phone, the first beams of sun sneaking in through the cheap plastic blinds of my apartment’s small, single window. I was disoriented - what time was it? How long had I been sleeping? I thought I was in my office, on that cot? Anyway, someone was texting me, and…

<buzz buzz buzz>

There it was again, a fourth alert, from a number I didn’t recognize. And it was morning, not quite quarter-to-seven. Swiping into my texts, I immediately saw the photo…

Two of my receptionists, Brittni and Bobbi, Young girls, friends, inseparable. They were here for, uh, jesus-

"were here to pick u up n get u to the hospitall for your rounds"

Oh shit. It's Thursday morning. 

Was it Thursday already?!? I was due into the hospital in - oh christ - twenty minutes!

And my - ugh ugh ugh - my car was gone! The facts, the events of the past two days began to settle back into me. It had been taken away by Sheryl, my wife. My wife had taken away my car. In my distress I had torn through the office yesterday morning more or less naked, lap-swaddled by Melissa, lifted, carried and then holy shit basically hand-raped and boob-smothered by the new Eastern European APRN, Morgan. This was all on Wednesday morning. And it was somehow Thursday already?!? How had I slept so long?!? And - who moved me from the cot in my office to here???

Anyway - I didn’t have time to think. I sprang out of bed. I needed to get ready, fast! The ignominy of needing a ride to the hospital this early AM from two of my youngest employees - something arranged, no doubt, by Melissa - was a fact I was going to have to ignore. Shirt, pants - too big. Belt - yikes. Shoes - I’m swimming in them. Was I actually 5’3”?!? Like Morgan measured yesterday? How could this be happening??? No time to be anxious, I’ll figure this out later, I decided, slamming the door to my apartment behind m-

What the hell?

The hallway was sealed off, plywood blocking the way that would have led to the stairs down to the atrium. The construction! Yes! Melissa had said they were working to tear down most of the second floor and - jesus - there were the new, small stairs, spiral, that would lead me down…

In the near-dark of the early morning I made it down, through Melissa’s silent office, and - the front entrance, also sealed - out through a side door. I was confused, disoriented. Holy shit what was happening to this place?! My practice?!

Hurriedly making my way out, finally, to the front parking lot, I found the two girls in Brittni’s white minivan, pulled up to the curb.

“hiiiiiiii….!” they sang in unison, turned from their front seats to watch me enter as I slid open the passenger’s side back door and hopped in. Their smiles were huge, delighted, and it smelled nice in the car.

“Good morning,” I answered, struggling to slam shut the door behind me, “thanks for doing this…”

“Seat belt…?” Bobbi suggested, brows raised expectantly.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I agreed, clicking myself in, looking around the cabin a bit as we began to pull away  “Nice…van.”

“It’s my family’s?” Brittni answered, turning out of the lot onto the main drag. I felt a quick, small pang of nausea hit me, like car sickness.

I shook it off.

Excited, the girls talked non-stop as we drove, Brittni with her eyes on the road or watching me in the rearview, Bobbi turned in her seat the whole time to face me. Both girls were dressed in jeans and black tops, showing - yikes - more cleavage than I’d seen in either one of them before. I did my best not to look down at Bobbi’s inviting chest, or steal glances at Brittni’s curvy profile. They were young - what? Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one? - but double yikes. Had they always been built like this??

It was thankfully a short drive to the small community hospital where I saw my patients, maybe about ten minutes. But throughout the whole thing they were giddy, giggly, obviously tickled pink by their assignment of chauffeuring me to work and amused that it was just after sunrise and they were driving their boss around since his wife had taken away his car. Their eyes glittered merrily, their smiles wide and white.

For myself I did my best to sit straight, look confident, speak clearly. My rumpled, oversized clothes and messy hair might not have helped matters; I’d gotten myself dressed and ready in all of three minutes and it showed. But, I hoped I could keep up at least some airs of professionalism in this otherwise totally demeaning situation. I needed to remain an authority figure, as best I could, to my young employees. I’d thought I was doing okay, keeping up with the light conversation which was - at the very least - thankfully distracting me from thoughts of yesterday, or how I was going to return to work at the office without melting from the humiliation. Two of my new employees - Shanette and then Morgan - had had their ways with me in less than the span of twenty-four hours. And that was notwithstanding the fact that I’d spent time cradled in my office manager’s lap. Oh my god what was happening??

In a brief moment of quiet, as Bobbi and Brittni tittered between themselves over something, I took the chance to gaze out the window. I thought about the office, remembering the hallways, the breakroom, Melissa’s couch. Aside from the humiliation I was beginning, for some reason, to feel a little...homesick? Thinking I shouldn’t be leaving, driving further away. It made me feel funny, like I was doing something wrong. Another brief wave of nausea hit me; I took a deep breath and stopped looking out the window. Settle down, I told myself, but couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. A deep breath - smelling of the girls, that new perfume - helped.

Before I knew it, though, we were pulled up to the front entrance of the hospital and Bobbi and Brittni were waving me goodbye, each smiling out the passenger’s side window as I gathered myself and stepped onto the sidewalk.

“Byeeeeee…!” they both sang, giggling as I hurried away. Thankfully I’d remembered my briefcase. “We’ll pick you up here at eleven..!” I heard Bobbi call after me.

Inside the front entrance, I stopped. I heard the sliding doors close off behind me, and I took another deep breath. There was that nausea again. Get it together, J.

Rounds. My Thursday mornings had, for years, consisted of me visiting my patients in their rooms: the diabetics, the stroke victims, the heart failures. Those that had been brought in as emergencies or ones that I’d admitted myself over the past weeks. Part of me always enjoyed rounds, seeing my patients in a different environment than the office, helping coordinate their care. I also liked the staff at the hospital, and had grown friendly with many of the nurses, receptionists and other physicians.

But, right off the bat, my visit this week went weirdly. Aside from the now-frequent waves of nausea, I was acutely aware of the stares. If I’d had hopes that no one would notice that I looked small, pale and weak, that my clothes didn't fit, that I was basically a shrunken mess - well, I was sadly mistaken. Not that much was mentioned, at first, but I’m sure they all saw how I was making mistakes, unable to concentrate, dropping things and stumbling over my words. It took one of my patients, though, about halfway through the morning as I visited him in his hospital bed, to speak the unspoken; “Where’s my real doctor?!” the old man croaked out, “This guy’s just a kid!!”

The two nurses in the room - each taller than me but somehow holding their tongues - turned to me. I began to stammer something, began to try to explain, but was immediately clenched with another grip of nausea, the worst yet. “Excuse me…” I asked, and rushed from the room.

I made it as far as the floor’s breakroom before I had to vomit in a sink.