A Reality.

This is week four in the Emergency Room.

Because the registration routine is being experimented with, the Triage bays started filling up again. However, this week, it was a lot smoother--I think mostly because of how Ms. Patricia handled the situation. Ms. Patricia is probably my favorite nurse to work with in the Emergency Room. She's kind to all the patients, maintaining that difficult balance between directness and manners. Not to mention, she's funny--today, she mimicked Santa, as she watched us, her "elves" scramble around the room to assist incoming patients. Her accent is also the best.

Anyway, working today was really interesting.

Walking into Emergency, I met a friend who was assisting her grandfather into a wheelchair. I've known Nancy since middle school, and so it was almost a happy reunion until we remembered the purpose of her visit. It was an interesting experience--where I had to sever personal relations to act professionally.

I also worked with some seriously ill people today. In one case, there was a young man who continued to vomit blood to the point where I brought him a wheelchair. He was rushed to see a doctor, rather than sit the registration process.

Not only that, I worked with a woman who could not stop sobbing--she was in too much pain. But she was forced to wait in the bays for over an hour because of the back up in the Triage.

I suppose health clearance from the Mecklenburg County jails are also a little more common than I realized--today, another inmate was brought in. Handcuffed. Escorted by an officer with two firearms.

But by far the most memorable experience today occurred near the end of my shift. A young woman came in with her mother, clearly very pregnant. I barely recognized her face, but I realized it was another friend from my middle school. She looked exhausted, stressed, anxious, changed. We were friends, but she and I both went to different high schools, and gradually drifted apart.

I don't think she recognized me at all.

When I asked what her emergency was, she answered by saying that she began contractions this morning.

When I asked her how many months she had been pregnant, she answered, "8 months. 32 weeks."

Then it really hit me. If she had been carrying her baby for 8 months, she would have been 15 (we had birthdays that weren't too far apart). Ironically, Dr. Phil (the TV channel that was on in the waiting room) had been talking about teenage pregnancies and reality shows about their situations (ie. Sixteen and Pregnant). This was much more "in your face" than a reality show--it was a reality. She wasn't even sixteen.

I knew that she was pregnant from rumors I had heard earlier, but this face to face encounter really shocked me to my core. And I sincerely hoped to God that the other rumor I heard was not true: that the father of the child was no longer part of the picture. Her delivery date coincided with the first day of school; what if she had to drop out? What might become of her child?

I barely recognized her. She didn't recognize me. How drastically, unrecognizably life can change within 2 years.