Welcome, Little Ones

The city of Davis added four new citizens today.  It was the most babies born during one of my shifts at the information desk.  Two of them seem to have been born within minutes of each other.  It always makes me smile to hear Brahms Lullaby in music box tones coming over the sound system.  It's a lot more coherent than some of the announcements that I hear!

This was kind of an odd day at Sutter.  First I went to get my lanyard with all of my ID and information cards and I couldn't find it.  I swear I left it on the back seat of the car on Monday, knowing I would be working on Friday.  But it's not there.  I'm going to eventually have to let Human Resources know that I need a new one.  I snuck in today without the IDs.

When I arrived at the hospital, I walked into a dark cave.  A transformer had blown and all the power was out.  No elevator, no lights, no computer, no cafeteria.  So we just kind of sat there in the dark for about half an hour until it came back on again.  I don't know when it went out.

The computer had to be rebooted which, the woman from the morning shift, told me involved getting on the floor and finding a button under the desk.  I let her do that since she knew what she was looking for.

Then there was the lady with the elderly mother in a wheelchair who had to pee.  The woman had an appointment in the building next door, but nobody in that building, apparently, could help her get to the bathroom and sent her over to the hospital.  I didn't understand the extent of the problem and took them to the restroom's handicap stall, but the daughter said she needed someone to help her mother.  I called upstairs to the nurses' station and they couldn't help me, so I went back to the bathroom to ask if I couldn't help. 

Well, it turns out that Mom has a broken hip and needs special care and the daughter hadn't done it before. The upstairs nurses had suggested I call the nursing supervisor, so I was about to do that when a young nurse walked by 

"Are you a nurse?" I asked.

She looked at me warily and said "Yes, but I'm about to end my shift..."

Figuring that all nurses have the milk of human kindness flowing through their veins, I explained the plight of the poor woman sitting in the bathroom waiting to pee and she said that if she tried to help and something went wrong, she would be legally responsible and she wouldn't take that risk.

Florence Nightingale she wasn't.

I finally called the nursing supervisor, who was about as interested as the other nurse and hemmed and hawed trying to figure out some way out of it (all this time I keep thinking of this poor woman who just wanted to pee!) but she eventually came downstairs herself and, since I didn't see her or the two women again, I assume that eventually everything came out all right.  Literally.

Then there was the woman who came to visit someone toward the end of my shift.  She had three children with her, a kid about 4, another one about 3, and a screaming toddler of 2 or so.  The kid was screaming when they got into the elevator and when they got out of the elevator some 20 minutes later.  I sure hope he didn't scream the whole time he was in the patient section of the hospital!

I didn't have a wheelchair problem today, though.  Twice now I've had the problem of someone borrowing the Auxiliary's wheelchair and not returning it by the time I had to leave, and then having to figure out what to do about it.

Today, however, I seem to have become the wheelchair parking lot.

Not only did I have three wheelchairs, but nobody needed them (the lady who had to pee had her own chair).

The time commitment for the Volunteers at the hospital are two four-hour shifts a month, and I took both of my August shifts in the first week, so I won't be working at Sutter again until September.  Maybe by then the floor will all be finished.  Thank goodness today the sanding was finished.

I went from work to the grocery store and got behind a woman with a screaming toddler in the cart.  I normally love babies, but I hated children before I left the store.

I also got behind an old man (who was probably my age) who stopped his cart at every single place where I wanted to pick up an item and then wandered off looking for something.

There was absolutely no reason for it, but by the time I got home all I wanted to do was cry.  Perhaps the sight of Trump spewing his hatred again did me in.  I turned off the TV.