Pilar
I swiped a thin line of the blackest black liner known to man across my lash line. The mirror in the women’s locker room wasn’t the greatest, but I’d spent a bit too much time in the shower this morning, putting me behind, and there was no way I could do my job without my “battle armor.”
People who work in hospitals go down one of two paths. They harden themselves against the atrocities they see daily, or they don’t, and eventually, it wears them down. They leave broken and hurting and never the same.
But the thing about hardening yourself was that the moment you do, you stop caring. When the horrible things didn’t make an impact anymore, it meant you’d lost your edge. I couldn’t afford that. I needed every advantage I could get to do my job well. So I painted on a happy face with waterproof, long-wear makeup. The process had become a ritual of sorts, preparing me to face the day, shielding me from the pain inherent to the job. Not so much that I stopped caring, but enough that I didn’t go home and cry myself to sleep every night.
That’s how I spent my first year out of school. Crying and eating. None of the professors or instructors ever mentioned how to deal with the stress of seeing people at their worst, of dealing with angry, hurting people who just want to feel better. No one told me how hard it would be trying to get an elderly person strong enough to return home, only to see them back in a few weeks when they fell again.
They taught me anatomy and effective treatment procedures and massage therapy. But no one taught me how to keep this job from getting to me. So I came up with my own method. Waterproof winged liner and the promise that I’d never take this job home. Whatever happened here, stayed here.
I checked my reflection one last time and headed to the PT station.
“Hey,” Jen said when I arrived. “I’m transferring one of Steve’s to you. He needs the ‘Pilar method.’”
I laughed. There was no such thing as the “Pilar method.” But I didn’t take bullshit or excuses from my patients, and it wore on me. Pushing people beyond their comfort zone and well into their pain threshold could be as hard on me as on them. The angry ones would grit their teeth and call me names, and I would take it because I knew if they could get through one more extension, one more mobility exercise, they’d be that much closer to being whole again, and that was the ultimate goal.
On the really bad days when I had one angry, bitter patient after another, one insult or racial slur after the next, I tried not to take it personally. I tried to tell myself these people were going through the hardest thing they’d probably ever been through. I did my job, I pushed them hard, and they were better because of it.
“That’s not a thing,” I said. “But I hope you warned him.”
“I didn’t. He needs a kick in the ass,” Jen said.
I glanced up from my charts. “What the hell are you wearing, Jen?”
The pretty blond nurse who also happened to be one of my closest friends blushed an angry shade of red. “They’re Mark’s scrubs. I stayed at his house last night.”
“Oooooooooh. I didn’t know you’d gotten that far. You’ll have to catch me up on that after work, all right? I’ve gotta check on Rosalie.”
Jen smiled at the mention of the elderly woman’s name. “Oh, tell her hi for me, will ya?”
I nodded and headed down the hall to Rosalie Brown’s room.
I knocked on the door, waited a moment and let myself in. “Good morning, Rosie. How are you feeling today?” I asked, surprised to see she sat upright in bed and waiting for me.
“Better than I’ve felt in months,” she said, smiling at me.
“Just what I like to hear. Ready to do some walking today?”
“Absolutely, dear. I’ll even wheel my own oxygen.”
“Ambitious,” I said, watching as she swung her legs off the side of the bed and stood without any help from me. “You’ve come a long way, haven’t you?”
She nodded, grabbing my waist for support as she took a step toward the door. “I feel much better than I did.”
Rosalie Brown was admitted four months ago with a serious case of pneumonia she mistook for a chest cold. Because of her age and her already compromised immune system, Rosalie contracted another infection in her lungs that left her unable to breathe without assistance. My job? Getting her back on her feet, comfortable, and mobile enough to return home.
Rosalie also happened to be one of my favorite patients of all time. She never complained, never felt sorry for herself, and always put as much as she could into her physical therapy. If every patient I had were like Rosie, they’d have to pay me to go home.
We got to the main corridor, and Rosie regaled me with the highlights of yesterday’s “stories.”
“Remember I told you last week I thought Nikki was up to something?”
“I do,” I said. “Oh, and Jen says hi.”
“Well, isn’t she just the sweetest. Tell her to stop by my room. I finished that scarf for her.”
“Will do,” I said.
“Now, what was I about to say?”
I smiled. “Nikki was up to something.”
“That’s right. Well, I was right. She planned the whole thing! The wedding catastrophe and the missed honeymoon flight—she was behind it all.”
“Why?” I asked
“Well, obviously she wants to get back with Paul.”
I didn’t watch soaps, and Rosie knew I humored her, but she also knew that walking while talking without getting winded was a sign she could go home. This was her way of telling me she was ready.
The only problem? Rosie lived alone. She’d lost her husband a few years ago in a house fire. They never had children, and she had no other family. If Rosie wanted to go home to an empty house, she had to prove she could do more than just walk down the hall.
We reached the end of the corridor, and Rosie started to turn back. “How about we try the stairs?” I asked and nodded toward the stairwell.
Uncertainty flashed in her eyes. “I’m not sure if I’m ready for that, Pilar.”
“You’re not, but you will be. I’ll make sure of it. Until then, you get to enjoy my company a little longer.”
She nodded, disappointment crossing her face briefly before she pushed it aside and focused on the return walk.