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.

Cold Eggs, Coveted Coffee, Etc. (a.k.a. Meal Time)

 

What fuels normal people.

(Image from Corbis.)

 

What fuels... us.

(Image from Getty Images, by Steven Errico.)

In the hospital ward, we get three square meals a day, even if they're slightly rounded squares. Roughly, at 8:00am, 12:30pm, and 5:15pm, the big cart is wheeled through the airlocks and into our domain. Every time it arrives, a herd of patients forms around it, lying in wait until the cart is unlocked and they can fall upon it like ravenous wolves. ...No, that's not actually a very accurate description. While the circling, waiting, and falling-upon is all true, it's all done in a shuffling sort of slow-motion. It's more like a swarm of shambling zombies than a pack of wolves. Even the smaller 9:00pm snack cart gets this intense amount of anticipation and attention. Food is important in the ward, not because of its nutrition value (because there is none to this food), or even just the need to eat for survival; it's that meal times make structure.

While several things mark the schedule of each day written on the big whiteboard, each assigned to their specific time, it's the meals that give order to the day. Sometimes groups or activities aren't held due to under-staffing, and sometimes you don't get a visitor during visiting hours, but you will always get a meal at the designated times. I hate to say that they're the highlights of the day, but... well. Sometimes you get cookies for dessert.

What surprised me about the hospital meals is that you actually order your food. I assumed that you were just given whatever and you ate whatever was given to you, dammit. Not so. Every morning, each patient is given a menu for the following day's meals. (Each menu is marked by a sticker with a patient's name so that there's no confusion in the kitchen.) You take your menu and your little pencil, handed out for this exact purpose, and circle what it is you want. If you don't turn in a menu or just don't circle something, you get whatever was first on the menu for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch, and chicken tenders for dinner. That's the way it works.

Quite frankly, it's sometimes the only real choice any of the patients are given.

We may not be masters of when we get to leave the hospital, or masters of what we do that day, or masters of how we feel, thanks to medication changes, but, god dammit, we do get to choose what we eat (out of a few options, that is -- there are limits to everything).

Sadly, the eggs at breakfast are always cold. I learned quickly not to order eggs. The cheese pizza is great, though. (Or as great as anything made in a hospital cafeteria can be.) Very cheesy.

While this isn't my favorite picture of hospital food from Getty Images,

I had to post it because that tray cover is exactly the type used by this hospital,

except ours were blue instead of green.

(Photo by Stewart Cohen.)

As if we're all elementary school children in the cafeteria, we sit around in the kitchen area of the ward and swap food with each other. Desserts are traded for side dishes, or sometimes just given away out of kindness for our fellow man (or disinterest or disgust with the food). Spare ketchup and salad dressing packets are begged for. Coffee is the most precious commodity of all. Patient G in particular would beg for others' coffees. It was possible to order more than one of anything in particular by writing a "x 2" next to the item on the menu, but they'll never give you more than two. Patient D always ordered two coffees and was very protective of them, despite Patient G's pleading. Patient G would drink his two coffees and then always beg other patients' for more. Eventually some of the other patients started ordering extra coffee just to give to Patient G and shut him up. (Not that requests for more of anything were certain to be granted) By around Day 4 of my stay, I stopped drinking my own coffee and just gave it to Patient G. Not only did it shut him up, but then I got to feel like a saint for a little while.

Trading food amongst ourselves is acceptable behavior. It's not creepy or anything. The creepy behavior always came during the brief in-between time after everyone had finished eating and before the cart (with all the empty trays) was taken away. During that window of time, there were scavengers. Patient G would go searching for coffees he had somehow missed, peeking into every Styrofoam cup in the cart, and Patient F would grab any uneaten thing he could find, either squirreling it away or shoving it into his mouth right then.

Just as Patient G begged for coffee, Patient F begged for anything. He was the master of "Are you going to eat that?" Always preying on the weak-willed patients who didn't know how to shake him off; they'd usually just give him something to make him go away, like throwing a bone at a dog and running away while it's distracted. I always wondered why the nurses and therapists didn't stop the creepy scavenging of the tray cart, but I guess creepy-but-basically-harmless behavior isn't high on the list of priorities for an understaffed nurse or therapist. They're busy enough trying to keep Patient X from taking his pants off.

A great discovery came from Patient L late in my stay. I probably would have abused it if I'd known about it sooner. She discovered that if you wrote "please" or "thank you" next to any request on the menu (like for "x 3" cookies, for example), you were more likely to get them. A shocking idea, I know. Usually requests for multiple items were ignored, and, even when they were granted, they never gave more than two of anything. But Patient L discovered that the cafeteria workers' hearts could be softened by a kind word and a smiley face, and that got her three cookies.

They were pretty good cookies, too. The eggs were cold, the salads were just lettuce, and the jello was inexplicably lumpy, but at least the cookies were good.

So eat up.

Yum.
Getty Images, by PhotoAlto/Milena Boniek