Friday
Some of the other nurses talk to the patients in the vegetable garden. I never did. If they can't hear you, it's just a waste of energy to speak to them. If they can, it seems a little cruel to bore them with details of aunt Bertha's affair or your dog's diarea. I appreciate that my charges don't say anything to me, and I feel happy to return the favor.
With neat snips of the scizzors, I shorten Doe's blonde hair. I have to cut it with him turned on one side, and I'm not sure it's going to be even. On the plus side, it isn't like he's likely to complain. I make sure every falling tuft of hair ends up on the towel under his head. I know that he wouldn't feel it if a tiny pinch of hair was left on his skin. He wouldn't try to push it away, he wouldn't itch. Still, I have enough empathy left that I cant imagine doing that to him.
Few other nurses last as long here as I have. Most people go into nursing out of a need to help people, to be the one to lend comfort, to feel like a small hero every day. I chose it because when I lost my brother; when I dropped out of med school less than a year from graduation, getting certified was the quickest, easiest way to be able to support myself without having a job that required me to think about it too much.
I rolled Mr. Doe onto his back, checking my handiwork. Even enough. I decided. The place I was raised was a small town with a large state-run hospital. It seemed natural to come back here when all my dreams fell through, when there was nothing left to care about. New nurses started here, with the extremely retarded, brain-damaged, and vegetatives. Most put in a transfer request their first week. I never did.
The john doe in bed eight came in about a month after I started. The day-shift nurse made a big deal over it, how he had been found in an alley in Brooklyn without a mark on him, except the old scars, but completely uncontious. She brought in newspaper articles that I read but pretended to be bored by.
With a little comb I carried, I went through his hair and untangled it. Even the slight waviness of his hair tended to matt up if it wasn't taken care of, when a patient was on their back all day and night. The woman who had the day shift here always commented that I took such great care of them. She never did more than the bare basics, from what I could tell. I'd gotten raises, but declined a promotion. Night shift was easier. No visitors coming through, their hopes and fears naked on their faces. No pain for me to absorb, to soak into me, to join the hurt already there in an ugly little party of misery.
Best of all, no touring med students, so fresh and optimistic. I always wanted to laugh at them, or scream warnings. Tell them that it wouldn't matter when it counted, that god or fate or whatever would take what it wanted whenever it wanted,and no skill or training or amount of caring would help.
I knew I was becoming melancholy, and tried turning my energy and attention to the task at hand. I washed Doe's face, cleaning the accumulated crud out of the corners of his eyes. The routine was soothing, rolling him, washing here, rolling him, washing there. He rose for me this time, and I had just realized that maybe I was washing "there" a little too thoroughly when his body suddenly arched up and away from the mattress. He took in a huge breath of air, pulling it through his throat like a scream in reverse. Startling blue eyes were wide open, and staring at the ceiling. His left hand came down on my hand and his fingers gripped my wrist with surprising strength.
Startled, embarrassed, I jerked my hand away from his still alert erection. Three years of vacation from his body had left his muscles weakened, and it wasn't too hard. He was still moving on the bed, trying to sit up or roll away, I couldn't tell. I had the rails on the side down so I could tend him, which made keeping him on the bed while I hit the emergency call button at the same time impossible. "Sir, please." My voice seemed out of place. I had the vague sensation that I was talking to myself. "You're in a hospital, you're safe. Please lie still." I put a hand on his chest. Awake, he was warmer than asleep, and his heart pounded furiously under my hand.
His eyes glanced around, trying to focus on his surroundings. He coughed and tried to speak, but it had been too long. His mouth was too dry, and his vocal cords were too unused to talking. "Lie still." I told him again, and he looked at me and nodded a little. I took that for understanding and took my hand off of his chest for just the second it took to stretch over to the call button and then back again. He turned his head, and I saw something flash across his expression. I followed his gaze, and saw that he was looking at the IV line going into his hand. A second too late I realized his other hand was reaching there, faster than I would have expected. The fingers of his free hand closed around the tube and pulled. Bright blood made tiny red spatters on the sheets and my scrubs. I put pressure on it with my thumb. A nurse from the station popped her head into the ward.
"Goddamn it, get a doctor!" I yelled. The girl turned and ran for the station. I felt color rising to my cheeks, realizing Doe was naked. The sheet had been pulled down to his hips by his thrashing, and my hand was pressing against his bare skin. He tried to speak again, and started to relax. I pulled the sheet up to cover his chest, but kept a hand on him. I didn't trust him not to twist around again. I could imagine him pushing himself off of the edge of the bed and breaking his skull on the floor. "It's going to be alright. You're in a hospital, and you haven't used your voice in a while. We'll get you some water and you'll feel better. Just relax for now. You're in good hands."
The doctor came running in, an older man, his bald spot poorly disguised by his comb-over, and a flurry of curious and useful nurses. I told him as precisely as possible what had happened, stumbling a little as my brain tried to edit. Everything I had done was professional, appropriate, but my attraction to him put me in doubt of myself, and I couldn't say exactly what I had been washing when he woke up. I ended up just saying that it was during the bath. I knew I was flushed, and I hoped nobody else noticed, or if they did, that they attributed it to the excitement.
A nurse raised the bed to a sitting position. The dr started asking Doe questions, slow and calm, yes-or-no types that he could nod or shake his head to. Did he know where he was? No. Did he remember his name? No. Doe looked over the crowd, those too-blue eyes meeting mine. A nurse walked between us to bring him a glass of water, breaking that gaze. "Get him down for an MRI." The dr decreed, and the nurses jumped to comply.
As Doe was taken away, I felt somehow betrayed, or robbed. Three years of taking care of his uncontious body, and now that he was better, it was all taken away from me, even the fantasies. Now he was a real person, who didn't know me, or care about me. He didn't even have a reason to. I felt the sensation of loss for the first time that I could remember since Rob's death.