The best/worst. (medical edition)

a marble impression of the IV trolley.

1. the ICU. So much beeping. So many alarms! The IV contraption is Medean in its multi-stranded-ness. So many people coming in and out with medications and blood to draw and ideas about how
you should get up and walk. And the beds. So, so uncomfortable. YET: when they transfer you upstairs to the counterintuitively named "step down" unit, with its heavy solid door and its much more quiet, you kind of worry they've forgotten you. What about all the needs? what about the alarms that go off and nobody comes? In the ICU this never would happen.

a bunch of people who can describe part of the problem.

2. Specialists. The Social Worker. The Case Manager. The Physician's Assistant. The Anesthesiologist, both attending and resident. The ICU nurses. The Respiratory Therapist. The Dietician. The Hematologist. They all know so much! Yet not a soul of them can tell you, really, how's he doing. Except maybe...

THIS GUY.

3. The Surgeon. Who is the best. No, really: the best. He might be a hero, in fact. He comes in at
6:30 for rounds with the medical students or interns or residents or whatever they are, their tired yet young faces fixed on his. He says, "The Historian is a X-year-old man..." and then gives the historian's case history. There's a lot of interesting stuff there, what with the factors and the surgery and the developments and the ins and outs and what have yous. Then, he steps into your room for all of 45 seconds to say that, despite this or that serious GD big effing deal that is causing you to lose sleep and possibly be at the ICU at 6:30 in the GD a.m., the historian is nonetheless looking good. Looking good.

Okay then!

I love/hate this place.

4. The hospital. This is an entirely admirable hospital. It's publicly funded, and thus it takes Medicaid, which means that they take the sorriest, meanest cases, and do a damned good job of helping people get better. So when I say that the hospital is the worst, I only mean that I hate it. I mean, I hate/love it. I mean, I am so damned grateful for it, and yet still I hope that my days there are few and fewer, and that it won't be long at all before the historian is in good enough shape to leave it for good.

But not until the hospital finishes its healing work with him, of course. Not until then.