12.27.06

Category: dribblings

trauma wednesday

i’ve mentioned the old lady kelly and i take to dialysis three times a week? yes. well, when i got back from lunch yesterday the lady working the front desk said that june had fallen and the medics took her to the hospital. this was a strange thing to tell me seeing as how 30 minutes later the same lady said, as i was walking by, “some man called and said that june’s door is locked and she’s in there screaming.”

“june? but i thought she went to the hospital?”

“no. she wouldn’t go when the medics came.”

the communication breakdown (i.e. the old lady at the desk is losing her mind, which is sad, but in situations such as these it becomes annoying and actually, dangerous. you’ll see why in a moment.) continued to breakdown further as i ran to get dad or the boss lady to go up with me to check on june. i’m no fool and i know my limitations and there is power in numbers. so dad and i tell the lady to call 911 (because we’re not allowed to pick up anyone who has fallen. it’s the rule, and it’s a good rule seeing as how we have no medical learning. we’re just the maintenance man and the painter, right?

so we get up there and yes, poor june is screaming. i unlock the door and open it six inches and….she’s fallen in front of the door. and? there is a puddle of blood that goes squlsh when i open the door. and when i say puddle, what i mean is, the MOST AMOUNT OF BLOOD I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. i turn to look at dad and he’s backing away from the door and turning white. not green, not ashen, white. as white as my refrigerator.

dad goes to get the boss lady to tell her that it’s an actual horrible emergency, and i stay to calmly talk to june before the medics get there. the good thing is the medics are stationed only 4 blocks away from HCH. so usually when we call 911 we hear the reassuring sound of sirens right away. in the back of my mind while i’m talking to june and saying things like, “yes honey, i can see that your bleeding, but baby i can’t open the door. we’ve got to wait for the medics to get here to figure out how to get to you.” i’m thinking where’s the siren? shouldn’t i be hearing a siren by now? wow that’s dark blood. she’s probably been in the floor for a while. christ, where is the siren!?

june kept begging me to open the door and get her. it was horrible. i kept trying to explain that if i forced the door open it would hurt her even more. i can’t actually see june, but every time i push a bit on the door she hollers a bit more and the coagulating blood squlshs even more. i didn’t get too queasy until i saw some white bits of something floating in the blood. i’m sure it was just something normal like crumbs or something, but i couldn’t help thinking of bones and teeth. i also couldn’t help thinking about the fact that i couldn’t hear any sirens.

soon after that the boss lady showed up and gasped at the giant amount of blood. she took over the talking calmly to june part as i had run out of sane things to say. (at one point june was demanding that i come in and get her glasses. “june, baby i can’t get your glasses. i can’t open the door anymore. just leave your glasses.”
“no jaimie, i’m going to hand you my glasses.”
“june, just forget the glasses right now okay? they’ll be fine.”
“by god you’re going to come in and get my glasses right now .”)

so yeah the boss comes up and she immediately goes into Amazingly Calm Mode. she got a roll of paper towels from a neighbor and begins to try to clean up the giant blood bath that is oozing out of the door. it’s only then that i notice the sound of sirens and i back away knowing they’re going to come off the elevator soon and save the day.

so the medics get there and they have to open the door a little more before the one guy can squeeze through the door. she screamed some more. it was bad. i couldn’t look in the door (and didn’t want to) but i watched the medics’ faces when the door opened fully. the horrified looks on their faces seemed to say, “holy shit balls.” they worked on her for awhile and then the ambulance showed up. the two ambulance workers came off the elevator with a gurney. the lady in the back of the gurney asked the one in the front, “is she hurt?” and the lady at the front looked in the door and quickly back out and said, “oh yeah, she’s hurt.”

about 8 minutes later she was on the way to the hospital.

after the big blood clean-up dad said that when he went down to get the boss he asked the lady at the front desk if she’d called 911. she said, “no, was i supposed to?” so dad grabbed the phone and called 911. if dad hadn’t gotten queasy and left to get the boss, if he’d stayed up there with me waiting on the medics? june would’ve damned died right there. so the boss had an extra bad day cos not only did she clean up most of the blood (one of the medics also cleaned up a lot of blood) she then had to fire the lady at the desk because well, obviously. this wasn’t the first incident where her old lady scatterbrainness screwed up something important (last week the fire marshall came in because of an alarm and she was on the phone (talking to her daughter about how her phone was cut off) and the marshall was all, “excuse me?” and she was all, “i’m on the phone long distance!” so the boss lady got reprimanded by the fire marshall for the lady’s idiota mistake.)

so this time she had to be fired because we can’t risk anything like that happening again.

i went home and had a whiskey drink i had a cider drink i had a vodka drink i had a lager drink.

june is in the hospital with a broken hip. sadly, we’re kind of wondering if she’ll make it. sadder still, if she makes it, she’ll have to live in a nursing home because the HCH provides no assistance at all. to live here you HAVE to be independent. we’re a regular apartment building…just low income housing for the elderly. so what’s worse? if she makes it? or not? i know she’s not having any fun, and she hasn’t been since she got out of rehab last week. she told me last week on the way home from dialysis if she goes back to the hospital she’ll die. my awesome response to that? “well, okay.”
her response? “i won’t live to see Easter this year.”
my response? “you’re in a good mood this morning.”
“it’s true,” she said.
“then it’s a good thing you’re having ham for Christmas.”

at least that got her talking about ham and not her immanent death.

working with the elderly really sucks eggs sometimes.

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