The Staff, Part 3: Perky Nurse

In an effort to write shorter posts, I'll cover the Nurses one at a time. No need to overwhelm you with text, my gentle readers. ("TLDR" is a valid concern.)

What I said earlier in the entry on the Therapists about the staff always sporting a colorful wardrobe was particularly true for the Nurses. Scrubs come in an absurd variety of colors, so a cheerful selection is not hard to come by. All the Nurses tended to wear cheerful or at least pleasing colors. ...And then there was Perky Nurse.

Perky Nurse was an explosion of color and cheer. I don't think there are even names for some of the shades of pink she would wear.

Short, spiky hair. Wild earrings. And pink scrubs.

It wasn't just the wardrobe that made me deem her "Perky Nurse." She simply was... perky. For being a Nurse in a psychiatric ward full of somber faces and snot-nosed tears, she was somehow all smiles, and they weren't even the kind of forced, vapid smiles that Therapist Verdigris had. Perky Nurse's smiles were all-natural, and intense. I could always tell when she was working a shift because I could hear her sunny-toned voice from anywhere on the unit. "Boisterous" is the word, I think. She greeted each patient boisterously, despite the fact that it was 8:00AM and no one should be "boisterous" before nine or ten o'clock.

She was a one-woman platoon against the grim and gloomy atmosphere of the ward. She would fill the void with her gaiety and habromania entirely on her own, and was darn determined to do it.

She cared for her patients like they were her children, full of maternal and absolutely unconditional love. It didn't matter if you were so comatose that you were staring right through her. She still had a smile for you and would make your bed.

That's right. She would make her patients' beds for them.

One day, when she was assigned as my Nurse for the morning shift, I returned to my room to catch her mid-fold as she made my bed. I'd seen her do this for my roommate and was baffled by the behavior. It certainly isn't a nurse's job to make the patients' beds, and the ward was grossly understaffed as it was. So I asked her: why?

"I want you all to feel cared for," she said, fluffing my bed's meager pillow. Then she looked at me with a giant smile and said, "I'm the Bed Fairy!"

I wish I was kidding. Seriously. You can't make this stuff up.

By CSA Images/Snapstock at Getty Images.

So -- thank you, Bed Fairy, for making me feel cared for during my stay. I hope you have many victories in your war against Sadness.

That much pink in a single outfit is completely unnecessary, though.


P.S. I forgot to add -- after that particular bed-making incident, Perky Nurse declared that my lone pillow was the saddest pillow she'd ever seen.

"It looks like it's been run over by a truck!" she declared, and promptly fetched me a second pillow to make up for my initial pillow's failings.

I didn't have to be jealous anymore of my roommate's ownership of a second pillow. I had my own secunda pillow, thanks to the Bed Fairy.

The Staff, Part 2: My Doctor

 From Getty Images. Photo by Val Loh.

What do I see? 

I see a bat.

Why? 

Because my Doctor is a goddamn vampire, that's why.

I'm pretty sure that My Doctor at Ward 3A was a vampire.

Besides a general air of creepiness and a piercing stare that unnerved me, I never saw him during the day.

But wait, Patient H, you might say. What if he just has a private practice during the day, like a normal psychiatrist, and just does his hospital work during the evenings?

"Well," I say to you, gentle reader, "That rationale isn't nearly as interesting. So let's go with the vampire thing."

While a patient's Nurse and Therapist varies from shift to shift, a patient's Doctor is an invariable factor. You only see your Doctor once a day, so shifts aren't an issue. You have one Doctor for your whole stay. Because of that, I can only speak knowledgeably about one Doctor -- mine, because he was all that I was able to observe.

The Doctors of the ward are creatures of mystery and autonomy. They waltz in whenever they want, completely violating the rest of the staff's attempts at maintaining a reliable schedule, and pull their patients aside one by one to suck their blood to talk privately in one of the tiny offices.

Tiny offices that never had any tissues. Ever.

That makes no sense to me. A psychiatrist requires only three items to practice their craft. They require a pen, something to write on, and tissues. While crying is an upsetting act in and of itself, I was always frustrated by my own tears, on top of all the other emotions experienced, because there was nothing with which to staunch the tears and other facial leakage. My Doctor would usually reach out to shake my hand after every session, but once I had to beg off because of -- as I actually said to him -- "snotty hands." That was embarrassing. (He did apologize for the lack of tissues, though. At least he seemed to realize that it was an unacceptable absence of necessities.)

Creatures of mystery, autonomy, and power. It doesn't matter what great progress you've made with any of your Therapists or Nurses. It's your Doctor that holds the key to your release or continued confinement. Only when The Doctor sees you as fit to leave do you get to leave. Therefore it's important to make a sane impression whenever your Doctor pulls you aside to chat. (Making a sane impression -- it's like making a good impression, just more urgently important.) I always made sure I was clean, decently dressed, politely alert, and calm. It didn't matter if I'd been crying only minutes before. If the Doctor showed up, I was all polite smiles and reasonable responses. Yep, there'd be no screaming tantrums or hysterical sobs from me! You might get that from other patients, but not little ol' me.

I am a Reasonable, Cooperative, Polite, and Generally All-Around Well-Behaved Patient, I tried to say in everything I did. I shouldn't be here. Don't you think I shouldn't be here? I should go home now.

Of course I tried to behave in a similar fashion for all the Nurses and Therapists, but it was more important with The Doctor. There were more consequences than just social niceties with The Doctor. You be nice to the Nurses and Therapists because you should be nice to everyone on principle. (And if anyone deserves a little pleasantness, it's them.) You be nice to The Doctor because there's an agenda.

But, as you might know, vampires have a heightened sensitivity to these things.

I'd been hoping to go home before the weekend. It was Friday and I was so ready to be discharged. (I had a birthday coming up the following week. I didn't want to spend my birthday in a loony bin.) I waited all day for my Doctor to show up so I could do my song and dance of reasonableness for him. I waited. And waited. And waited. I asked various Therapists when he might come in. They shrugged. I asked various Nurses when he might come in. They just rolled their eyes. I waited and waited in an ever-increasing fervor of need to show how goddamn sane I was (which probably wasn't very sane, now that I think about it). The Nurses and Therapists were all on my side by now. They were rooting for me, the good patient. I just had to convince The Doctor, and I was practically bursting with my need to do so.

He didn't show up until after 7:00 pm. Because he's a vampire.

Or because he has a private practice during the day. Whichever. I'm still voting for vampire theory.

"You look well," he finally said after he moseyed on in, careless of the anxiety I'd felt in waiting for him all day. Then added, "But, of course, you could be acting."

Damn sneaky vampires.

(What makes it particularly funny is that I was a theatre major in college. Acting? Who, me?)

But I wasn't acting! I really am a reasonable, cooperative, polite, and generally all-around well-behaved person. Even in real life, when I'm a person rather than a patient. It wasn't acting. It was... emphasis.

Needless to say, I didn't get out of the hospital before the weekend.

Because of the vampire.

From the Petrified Collection at Getty Images.

Do you see the vampire in this picture?

No, of course you don't.

Because vampires can become invisible. Duh.