Real Life General Hospital

My latest volunteer position at a local hospital has me visiting the sick. Acting as a liaison between the patients and the administration, I go from sickroom to sickroom, sanitizing my hands on the way in and the way out each time, determining if all is going well and if not, why not. It's interesting and depressing at the same time, which might also be a description of life itself on some days.

This morning I met a loquacious woman who absolutely hated the food, especially the hamburger they brought her for dinner last night. "It was terrible," she all but shouted. "How hard is it to make a good hamburger? My father works in a crummy restaurant and he makes much better hamburgers than they have here. And for dinner the day before, the pork loin was wet! I make great pork loin, that is so easy to make, I know that for a fact. You just throw it in the oven. How hard is that?" Leaving her with a promise to talk to the chef, or at the very least the volunteer coordinator, I went into the next room and asked the man in there his opinion of the hospital fare. "I didn't come here for the food," he said, putting his hand over his heart. "It's the ticker that's the problem. But they do make a pretty good burger."

A few doors down I chatted with a very old woman who had a tube up her nose, several more coming out of her arms and a distinct twinkle in her eye. Since we volunteers are not permitted to ask personal questions, I had no idea what ailed her. She offered that things were going great, and that the hamburgers were fine but the vegetables were too mushy. "They cook them too long, that's what it is," she explained. She seemed pleased that the nurses were attentive and her doctor had come to see her every day, but she was quite annoyed that on last night's "Dancing With the Stars," transgendered son-of-Cher Chaz Bono was the last contestant. "I had to watch the whole damn show when all I wanted was to see her, or him, or whatever he is. Here I am sick in the hospital and I need my sleep. They should know that everyone just wanted to see her...or him. He should have been on first. Or her."

I knew this work would be eye-opening.