CNAs: (move from ICU)

The wind is lashing a blanket of rain against the big window in my new room where I don’t have a view of the mountains anymore. I imagine there is a plywood booth off in a tree somewhere which is called The Call Button Dispatch Booth. People sit in there with their knees against the ledge and talk to far away places.

The red light on my bed talks back to me. It says things like How may I help you? There is a button for toilet, a button for pain, and a button for water. I think the button for toilet makes that ice cream truck noise out in the hallway. Whatever I tell them, they respond by saying We’ll let your nurse know. This is not the ICU anymore. I might have to ask them to let my nurse know two times or three times. And then, my nurse is busy so they’ll send the CNA.

I think of the CNAs as beautiful young deer. They are tasked with taking vitals and relaying messages. They do not dispense pain medication. Some of them take their jobs very seriously and follow all the rules, which means that they turn the bed alarm on so that I cannot pee without supervision. If I get up the bed will say, please get back on your bed. Oh my God, I feel so mischievous.

My CNA tonight is a special woodland creature who treats me like a young deer. I’ve been informed that I am asking for help during shift change. I realize I’m a difficult person and say, I’m sorry this is a bad habit but I’m in pain.

They say, we’re just setting your expectations.

I know, I say. I’m in pain. My day nurse and I have an agreement that I will tell you when I’m ready for painkillers again instead of taking them every 4 hours. 

Please excuse the poor punctuation. Punctuation for dialogue seems so laborious.

Now I am standing in the hallway, calling out, Who is my nurse? I am trying so hard to be patient but I’m in pain.

The CNA says, I will get your nurse. This is what they do. They respond to these junkies that need their pain medication every 4 hours. She follows me into my room and tells me it’s time for my vitals. I try very hard to be nice and I say I have one more request. Could someone please, please put a sign in my door telling people to close it ? Every single person that comes in here (food, housekeeping, transport, therapist, CNAs, RNs) leaves the door open and it’s driving me insane. She says oh yes, oh yes, I can do that. I hear the door slide shut and I hear lots of squeaking noises. She’s writing on the glass. More squeaking noises. More. She comes back in and says, I wrote it three times on the door. I don’t think anyone can miss it now. I am such trouble. She’s so adorable.

I ask, This is the neuro floor, right? Like, everyone has a headache.

She says oh yes.

I say, so we should just all yell down the hallway. then She says something nice.

When she comes in, in the middle of the night to take my vitals, I imagine it’s with little cooing noises because I am a wounded deer. 

I finally meet my nurse for the evening. I like her. I like all my nurses. I remember in high school when everybody knew that you could become a nurse because it was a good job. They are young and practical and very smart and put up with unbelievable stresses. She empathizes with my headache and asks me if I’d like the window shade down. I described to her the beautiful feeling of freedom I have now that I’m allowed to walk up to the window by myself without calling the call light.

My neighbor must be one of those people that has DELERIUM written on his door because he clearly doesn’t know how to use the call light.. He keeps calling out,

Hello!! Hellooooooohhhh!

No one is answering him. It’s this horrible, horrible feeling, like what an insane asylum in medieval days used to be like. He becomes impatient and then he really starts yelling down the hallway at the top of his lungs,

HELLOOOOHH!! HELLOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!

I found this place deep in my side myself where I can nap. The automatic blood pressure machine is no longer strapped to my arm to take measurements every hour, so now it just breathes all by itself.

Sssshhhhhhupp!

Cooooooooo!!!

There’s also a rhythm to the rise and fall of the laughter in the hallway because change of shift is a very social, very happy time of the day. I imagine lots of flirting.

Hello!! Hellooooooohhhh!

Sssshhhhhhupp!

Cooooooooo!!!

Laughter rises and falls.

Helloooooo! 

I’m no longer a gracious being of light. I want to go stand in his doorway and yell Shut the fuck uuuuuuuup!!!

Now it’s around 4:30 a.m. when I typically talk on my phone to you and my mother knows I’m going to call her soon. Don’t worry, she’s on the East Coast.

I’m more ready to go home than I was yesterday. Yesterday this doctor was proclaiming to me how he was advocating for me (big exclamation. point) I didn’t know what that meant and I felt like he wanted a medal. And he wasn’t listening to what I wanted, which is to not go home and die. Why can’t these highly educated men realize there is a difference between my being able to clean and feed myself and having someone discover me in my apartment, not knowing who I am because my brain slid to the left? I was explaining this to my day nurse, and he joked that it was probably not a good time to take my blood pressure.

But I think we have a plan now. Don’t rely on statistics and science. Pick up the f****** phone and talk to someone every four hours and let them know that we are somewhat sharing the same time and space .

I started to hate it here last night. But I will probably miss it too. What will I do without these people?

7 thoughts on “CNAs: (move from ICU)”

  1. Tasara, I am so moved by your journey, in part because I was hospitalized myself for a couple of days last week. Seeing your “port” made me weep with the intensity of it all. You are a model for me on how to transmute experience of whatever kind into grace.

    1. Oh my goodness, Joseph, I want to know what happened! Maybe tomorrow we can talk on the phone. I am glad to hear you are home again.
      Hugs,
      Tasara

  2. Oh my friend! 😊 Your gift of words here makes me want to quietly, gently hold your hand, and belly laugh out loud all at the same time!
    I love you and for sure… the struggle is real!
    Im standing on the sideline, pom-poms in hand, cheering you on!
    πŸ’žπŸͺΆπŸ¦β€β¬›βœ¨

  3. Tasara, your writing is so eloquent and descriptive I feel I’m there with you. I’m amazed that you can bring that level of creativity and rich expression to your situation – and I hope that it helps you to deal with it all. What a trial! I send you good, healing energy for stabilization and recovery, soon!
    Love, Ian.

    1. Thank you, Ian. It does help me. There’s been a lot of capital letters around no screen time sternly directed towards me, but I had a discussion with an occupational therapist yesterday about how there’s lots of different kinds of screen time and I have 25 years of professional screen time and I can turn the lights in the sound down and I can experiment. Personally, I feel like there’s a difference between reading shit and stressing out and expressing myself.
      Boo-hoo on solstice this year. I don’t know if I’ll be home or not but I’m sure it will be a powerful experience in the dark.

      I told my mom I was a little uncomfortable with all the attention and she said “Suck it up.” She’s so awesome. She also informed me and all my siblings that the goddesses in control and then, if the goddess doesn’t take care of things, she’s gonna have to answer to her.

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