Tell Me Tuesday
Yes people it's back. If you have never played before, take a recently published work and break it down for me scene by scene
My offering this week is Another Day, Another Dollar which I wrote in honor of Nurse/Hospital/EMS week and features Lenaquin and my medical AU
"How can I help you?" She put on her best customer service voice when she answered, forcing a smile as Mr. Hill in bed 8 ranted on about when he would be discharged.
Look we start out with Lena being the charge nurse in a very busy ER. And if you have ever worked Healthcare you know you are part lifesaver, part IT, part customer service rep, part problem solver, part everything. I definitely am a completely different person when I answer that call light
With every passing day she found herself more and more done with this shit. Short staffing, no raises, and a hospital that was rationing supplies like the apocalypse was coming. Budgeting they called it. Bullshit she said. This was not what she got into nursing for, but sadly this was reality in the post Covid world. And yet Tarquin got mad when she joked about quitting nursing for stripping.
1. This year they literally made it a NATIONAL safety goal to address staffing issues. I left the hospital because post covid hospitals continue to push nurses to unsafe ratios. All for profit, they claim. But only worrying about profit kills people.
Also I have never known a nurse who didn't joking about quitting nursing for stripping
"Mae. Quin. Lorelei. I need you to wrap whatever you are doing up and get to the nurses station. Now. I need bed 8 out of here and cleaned. Possible STEMI coming in. And if anyone sees Dr. Pavus, grab him." She swore she was going to attach a damn bell to the man, though he would probably like that too much and make it a fashion statement.
I remember the days of hurriedly cleaning a room to throw a new patient in. And trying to find the damn doc who NEVER carries a walkie
Lena was in the hall when the middle aged male rolled through the doors on the cot looking way too grey, and she knew already it was a real one as she half listened to the report. 41 year old male, smoker, overweight- the usual suspects though she swore they kept getting younger and younger. She removed ems stickers from the man's chest and slapped new ones on as Quin did the same from the other side. Working in tandem together was too easy, something learned from years side by side as they threaded EKG wires she knew by color alone. She wasn't the kind of charge nurse to sit idle and not get her hands dirty, especially when the nursey feeling in her gut was getting louder by the second. "Mae, what's the ETA on Dr. de Fer?" she asked over walkie between clipping leads on. If they didn't move soon, they were going to be calling Code Blue instead of Code STEMI overhead
My gut may hang over my pants but it woke. Sometimes the nursey gut tells you 'oh this is bad' before the diagnostics confirm. And yes I feel like the population of ill people is getting younger and younger. And yes I can thread EKG wires through color alone. I don't need to look at times, I can almost do a 12 lead by feel. Especially when time is critical
21 minutes, door to balloon time 21 minutes. The hospital would rave about that she was sure, take all their credit as they posted it to the Minrathous General Facebook page. They would interview Dr. de Fer, the patient, hell maybe even the EMS crew. Not that anyone would remember the ER, they never did. Another day, another dollar, another life saved. Or something like that.
That's a hell of a balloon time. And yes everyone always forgets the ER. I especially love the book end style ending. We come full back to the beginning 'Another day, another dollar, another life saved'
Because to Lena what matters is the life.