Rules

Oh, it's so hard to sit sometimes. Especially on Mondays after 3 days straight at work. I feel like work is this weird hiatus from my real life, which is waiting for me, tapping its foot on Monday morning. The ICU is this strange twilight ship that takes off Friday morning and lands late Sunday night. I sort of have these dream states in between which consist of sleep, sex, and an approximation of dinner. Then 4 days to be sort of normal. Lilly's insight has proven to be a breakthrough in the state of the house. It's been livable for a week now, with not too much effort. Who knew?

I'm always searching for the recipe. The one rule.

I was there until 2130 last night. Charged all weekend. Wiz was gone again. I got a cryptic email from him thanking me for my friendship and asking that I not try to find out what was going on and not talk about him. I emailed him back, gave him my cell, told him if he was in trouble I could have someone there in 15 minutes and that whatever was happening, he had my support.

What a funny little animal. Everyone asked me what was up. I blithely lied and told them his whole family had the swine flu. Every one clucked in sympathy. Hooray for H1N1! Oh,Wyczkoski. I hope you're all right.

Then all weekend, I ran the place. I tried to be Wiz, with limited success. But there is something about just jumping in and doing things that seems to lend itself to success. The whole crew now is brand new--graduate nurses. And they know nothing. They don't even know sort of regular adult things--like don't interrupt,and show up on time and don't call in drunk. Don't talk during report. Drunken Disaster got belligerent during report yesterday morning. She had some questions I asked her to hold til we got through hearing report--
"I'm just asking a question about my pay!"
"Okay, but we need to address that after report.'
"I was just asking. Jesus."
"Yes, but now it's time for report. Please go ahead, Kyle."
I fired off an email to our manager. Which I've never done. Wiz would be disappointed. He hates tattling. But I'm pretty worried about this person. I don't think she belongs here. I feel strongly about this. I worry about people who seem to not notice or care about regular social boundaries, even in small ways. In my experience, this always is a harbinger of deep seeded mental illness, a lack of empathy and disassociation from the rest of humanity. I know that's a lot to ascribe to small discourtesies and I've probably been drinking my own bathwater. There are the rules that are there because of social control--stupid rules--like jaywalking. Our town is so quiet, who cares about jaywalking? Big deal. There are the money rules which seem to be made by people who want to keep other people in their place. But then there are other rules--like drinking and driving, or running red lights--and the unwritten rules we have to have to function--sometimes it's just rudeness, but sometimes it's something much worse. And with a nurse in an ICU, the potential and temptation for worse is huge. Primo Levi (to paraphrase) said that when someone is facedown in the mud, the human temptation is to keep walking over him, not help him up. There are a lot of people face down in the mud on this twilight ship.
Hmmmm.

That's my 1/2 hour.