Early in May, I went down to University of the Pacific to sign up as a new patient. When I left, there were some students dressed as tubes of toothpaste standing around on the sidewalk outside.
The next day, I went to the NICU to hold babies for the first time. The volunteer who trained me had clued me in that the official gowns volunteers are supposed to wear are made of plastic and can cause a lot of sweating, but that there is another kind of disposable gown that is acceptable. She showed me where to find those, so when I reported to work, I went and put on one of the latter. Even so, I felt very warm.
A nurse arranged pillows in a comfortable chair and I put a small blanket fresh from a heated cabinet on my shoulder and sat down and she handed me my first baby, a little girl who soon fell asleep. It proved to be very relaxing to hold a baby—boring, actually, but then, peace can be boring, so it’s good to learn to enjoy boring things. I had to struggle to stay awake, and hoped there is some sort of protective instinct that would keep me from dropping the baby on the floor if I did nod off. Before the baby fell asleep, it was fun to watch her constantly changing facial expressions, and after she was asleep, it was satisfying to know that I was providing a safe, comfortable place for this tiny being to rest. I held her for about half an hour and then it was time for her to have some kind of procedure.
Next I held a baby boy dressed in a little onesie styled to look like a tuxedo. The nurse told me that he was frequently “desatting”—desaturating: having the oxygen in his blood drop too low—and that when that happened, he would turn purple in the face, and then I should do something to wake him up a bit: pat him on the stomach or tickle his feet. But if it went on too long, I should get a nurse. This was the second and last baby of the morning. On the whole, the experience was very agreeable. The only thing I didn’t like is that the front of my work shirt got totally wrinkled.
I went and rounded in the ED, which was surprisingly busy at 10 in the morning, and talked to 18 people. I had lunch in the cafeteria and then it was time for the daily huddle, a brief chaplain team meeting that takes place on one of the hospital units. At the end, Clementine asked someone to offer a prayer or blessing or do an interpretive dance, etc., so I began an interpretive dance, and the other five people in the circle silently joined me. We were in a hallway outside several patient rooms, and someone standing in a doorway watched us dance, a patient or family member. Clementine thanked me for being the first person ever to do an interpretive dance at the end of huddle.
Next it was off to a medical unit to see several people, and when I ran out of steam, at about 3:30, I walked home. In the evening, Karen V. and I went to an Eritrean restaurant on Irving St. The cuisine seems to be identical to Ethiopian, including the injera, but this particular place was way cheaper than the Ethiopian place in my neighborhood, and the food was just as good, and the staff were very friendly. Then to Tart to Tart for tea.
One weekend, my ex-CPE supervisor Anita and I got together. She had never been to North Beach, so we met on Market St. and took the bus there, passing through Chinatown, which she also had never seen. I showed her the park and the big church, and we went to Liguria, a focaccia place that David and Lisa used to go to when they lived in that neighborhood, and we had a tasty brunch at Pinocchio.
At work, I asked another chaplain about the family I had visited at night. The patient was unavailable for conversation, so I mostly spoke with a young family member, and therefore my chart note was mostly about this family member, whose stories I felt afforded a good lens into the family, which has many challenges. Though chaplains explicitly care for family members as well as patients (and also for staff members), I did feel it was a little odd to write a long chart note about someone other than the patient and wondered if others would also question that choice.
However, my colleague said that my chart note proved to be valuable to other care team members, and was relied upon by them as they considered their interactions with this family. My colleague said my note was the best thing that could have happened for the family member, who is just a child and on the receiving end of some extremely toxic dynamics.
Back in the corporate world, I would have said, “Could I ask you a favor? If you have time, could you tell our boss that?” I would want my boss to know I’d done a good job. But just as I was opening my mouth to do that, I decided against it. Part of me does feel it’s unseemly to toot one’s own horn (though I do it all the time right in this blog, including in the paragraph prior to this one), and it also shouldn’t really be necessary: if I’m doing a good job, that will inevitably become known, just as everyone knows when someone is doing a bad job. Also, I have in the past gotten surprising and not necessarily pleasing results after telling my boss something I did that I thought was great, so maybe less is more in this regard.
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