Day off

Well, I decided to take a day off today, in many ways. AFter my physical therapy appointment I was in more pain than before so I went to my doctor and got referred for xrays. I'm hoping they figure out what's wrong with my back soon because it is going to be hard to do acting in the fall, much less sit at a desk and write papers and stuff. Hopefully the xray info will be back soon.

I observed something very disturbing in the waiting room at the Evanston hospital Radiology department. When you walk in, they give you hospital gowns to change into and then you wait, they take you back, put you in weird positions, and then take pictures. THen you go back to the waiting room, sit around in the hospital gown a little longer, and finally get to change back into normal clothes and leave. While I was waiting to be called, sitting in my hospital gown, a hospital worker of some kind wheeled in an elderly woman in a wheelchair from where she had just had her xrays. The worker was male and the woman was asking if there was a female nurse who could come help her change back into her clothes. Apparently the relative of another patient had helped her get into the gown and she was hoping she didn't have to impose on a complete stranger again. Instead of being respectful and considerate, the male radiology tech or whatever he was told her there was no one who could help her and then asked the entire waiting room if there was someone who could help her. I can only think of how humiliating that must have been for her! Erica immediately stepped up and volunteered to help her which is just one of the million reasons I love Erica. I would have helped her myself but I was selfish and didn't want to be out of the room when they called me for my xrays.

There are two possibilities to why this elderly disabled woman was humiliated in a waiting room full of people at the hospital. The first is that the hospital really doesn't have enough funds to hire people who can help patients get in and out of hospital gowns in radiology. The second, and more disturbing possibility, is that what Erica and I witnessed was a case of ageism where a staff member decided that he had to get back to his job and couldn't be bothered with finding any female staff member who could spare 5 minutes to help the patient. I really hope it was the first option as that is possible, but I have a feeling it was a little of each and ageism was a factor.

I also took a day off from the news. I needed a break, which is a luxury that so many people don' t have right now. I spent all day thinking about the devastated area in the South because at work, my boss printed out an article about the hospital her sister's uncle-in-law (if there is such a thing) runs in Jefferson Parish, Lousiana. When I told her about my interest in this subject, she printed out an email that her sister had forwarded about this uncle-in-law's personal experience. Hearing about how the government did not do enough to prepare OR respond from a personal experience was amazing and infuriating. This man is the CEO of a hospital down there and in the days after Katrina, FEMA actually hendered aid more than helped. Gary, the CEO/Uncle, was able to call out of town hospital contacts to get supplies in and was able to get them within hours, despite flooding, because of telling them back ways to get to the hospital (while the government was insisting there was no way to get help to the people in Jefferson Parish). When generators were being brought there so that the hospital could have running water and electricity, the government stopped those trucks for hours before sdme of the generators were able to get past. I would have been in tears when I got home except Erica had cooked dinner for me when I walked in the door. The email and the article also talked about how this hospital had done a great deal of preparation for hurricanes and it is because of this rare preparation that the hospital is still up and running, with clean water and electricity. The story can be found at http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9179702/site/newsweek/ .


OKay, I'm going to go knock myself out with another muscle relaxer or as Erica put it as we were leaving the hospital "let's take you home and get you drugged up and knocked out." Around the same time she mentioned that, we were walking through the parking lot to the El and there was music streaming through the PA system. I thought it was just classical music but Erica made me go back and listen. It was the Northwestern Fight Song. How sad is that.

Overall an adventurous day off although not very relaxing overall. Time to call it a night.