“I am sorry, I really did not mean to upset you” said a rather small woman in a white lab coat. The patient was curled up tightly in a corner of his padded cell. His eyes glazed over and his mouth chattering “drowning, cold, drowning, ice” he sputtered. Her eyes quickly scanned his trembling body as he started to relax into a rocking motion as he began to ball him self up. “Dr. Hastings, Dr. Hastings to the dayroom” blabbed the loud speaker on the wall. The patient was becoming a jittery rocking chair in the corner of the floor. Her green eyes looked over him sadly and she turned to leave. “Drowning, cold, drowning,” the rather stiff patient muttered as she left. This was one of the times that she wondered why she had agreed to take this job and leave Boston Medical Center. Upon closing the door the patent started to sob and wails like some banshee on a Moore. A nurse had hurried to her side “You know Mr. Lancing is delusional and yet you persist on asking him about his accident, why?” Dr.Hastings looked over at this nurse who was so impertinent and sighed “It is part of facilitating the statutes set out by the governor and the psychological association.” The nurse bit his lip and nodded “Mrs. Benson is having an episode of mania and is keeping everyone away from her by heaving chairs and crayons” As Diana Hastings walked into the dayroom she saw Christine Benson fall into the orderly’s arms. The orderly laid down a jacket and then laid Christine down in it and tied her up in the jacket with tight, neat knots.
Three other orderlies arrived in the day room and lifted Christine up as if she was a coffee table. The orderlies carried Christine down the hall and into her quiet, grey and minimalist room. There was nothing sharp, ungrounded or harmful and so made it look like a cell in the county jail. Dr. Hastings took Christine’s pulse and then took a needle from her breast pocket. She took off the sheath and tenderly put it to her patient’s skin. The clammy flesh pulsed in time as Diana slid the needle in and swiftly pressed the plunger. She took the needle out and handed it passively to the nurse beside her and whispered “I would like to be apprised if she wakes up… and if she starts trembling.” Nurse Marcel nodded and stood up as she looked at Diana she smiled at her optimism and then slightly cleared her thought. She turned and walked back to the door and saw patient 5-2453 looking at her intensely. This job made her really angry and at times paranoid. Seeing these patients as humans is tough at times like this and she felt so out of place here.
As the door closed behind them both and the orderly turned the lock they both knew this was going to be another tough day. Diana jogged down the hall knowing that she was a little late to her group session with her addiction group. She reached the door and slid inside with a smile. Her patients turned about looking at her with judgment and anger. “You demanded that we never be late, yet here you are. Late.” Diana nodded “I am not just your therapist, so my hospital responsibilities may mess up my schedule once in a while” the patience whispered amongst each other and words like trust and hypocrite were heard. Diana sat down and quickly organized the clipboard on her desk and then hurriedly jerked it toward her self. She whipped off the pen from the clip board and looked around the circle in anticipation. Her patients sighed as she spoke to them in earnest about the troubles each faced. To her it seemed that her liberal mindset had changed from when she was in med school.
She sat there listening to those who had given there lives to narcotics and alcohol. Learning not to judge or look down on them was tough. Diana was in and out of depression now a days and it seemed not to let up in these Massachusetts winters. Hearing Paul’s bouts with Jim Bean she merely noted it on the paper under his name and then Jan went and she nervously scratched at her arm and talked about her substance abuse and how it ruined her life. Diana’s comments seemed to go unheard as she jotted down notes and suggestion for there therapy. Finally Bert was heard and he shook from head to toe. Bert was on speed for 15 years and he was just now being weaned off it. She jotted down to give him a muscle relaxant. These were her most disturbs addicts and after Bert she wanted to have some time so she could do the write ups.
She had just started with her semi annual analysis of the patients under her care, and she saw out of the corner of her eye a shadowy form in a long coat in the doorway with its head angled down and its arm held a clip board which it was writing on. Looking up all she saw was the yellow fused light in the hall. “Hello. Is anyone there?” She rose and moved to the door and looked out in the hall where light pored into the space and a light breeze rustled papers at the nurse’s station down the way. As she peered down to the station she noticed a formidable looking orderly and he straitened and turned around to see her. He smiled and nodded his head and she waved politely. He could not be the form, because he is to far away she thought in earnest as she sized him up. She ducked back into her office and strolled over to her chair and carefully sat down. Her unease may have showed in the way she conducted her sessions and the caution she had while in her office. Dejavu seemed to happen a little too often. Writing studies and sessions for the health department seemed unnatural.
Maybe it was all just because she was so sympathetic toward the patients even in shock therapy. At times she caught her self staring at nothing and rocking to and fro and when she snapped back to what she was doing she could not remember what she was doing and would have to read through her papers for a few minutes in order to remember. “Excuse me doctor? Can I talk to you?” asked Bert in a nervous tone as he peeked around her door. Diana nodded and put down a folder “what can I help you with?” Bert came into the office and sat down in the green leather wing back that was in front of her desk. The chair squeaked low as it settled around him. “I think there are ghosts here” Bert spurted out. Diana put her elbows on the table and knitted her fingers as she leaned in “Now Bert your medication…” Bert stood up and interrupted “it’s not my medication. I saw one in the day room mirror.”
Diana stood up slowly putting her hands flat on her desk. “Bert I think you need to calm down or I will have to sedate you” Bert looked lost and sat down slowly. “You’ve got to believe me doctor. I know I am an addict, yet I am perfectly sane.” Doctor Hastings took a file from the stack opened it and began jotting down notes. “I am not crazy. You know I am not prone to seeing things” Bert said as he put his hand to his forehead and leaning his elbow on the arm rest. Diana nodded and wrote down his ‘delusion’ and that he may be ‘breaking’. “Are you listening to what I am saying?” Bert asked in desperation. Diana nodded “yes, and I think you aught to try and contact these ghosts” Bert huffed “they are speaking and I can’t hear them.” Diana was perplexed “what do these ghosts look like?” Bert looked lost “they are gray and I can’t really see any complexion or detail” Diana nodded in compliance and jotted down the possible paranoia and that his meds should be adjusted.
Bert started to mumble and what he was saying could not be considered speech. “Bert it’s time to go to the day room, so I will walk with you” Diana got up and went over to Bert’s chair. Standing there waiting for him to stand and he looked up at her and clenched his jaw while he shook his head vigorously. “Bert” She scolded “it’s time” Bert simply hunkered down and his hands shot out to the arm rests and clamped on with the strength of a vice. Diana stepped to her desk side and pressed the page key on her phone and said in a low voice “Nurse Marcel please come to my office I think we have a situation.”
Nurse Marcel heard Diana’s stressed voice and grabbed the tranquilizer kit and the straight jacket that was on the small table to the side of her. This doctor is a bit hopeful for my taste she mentally commented as she rushed out the station door and down the hall to her right. The doctor’s office was a door away and the calm voice of Doctor Hastings was unmistakable. Nurse Marcel had known only this hospital and this doctor, for she had just graduated nursing school 6 months ago even her psychiatric internship was here. She remembered taking the MCAT, and yet she could not remember high school or childhood. Sometimes she felt like the gaps in her life were still happening. For instance she could not remember going home or where her home was.
Nurse Marcel had arrived in the office and Diana stepped back and let the nurse do her duty. Diana had the highest MCAT score in her graduating class, and yet her graduation and family memories were fuzzy and sometimes nonexistent. She knew that most doctors had memories of collage and roommates, so she was curious why she did not. When she did have memories that had feelings the seemed like pictures out of a book with feelings of joy and anticipation about them. She shook her head I am starting to sound like Bert She helped to secure the jacket by holding Bert in a tight bundle. Marcel had then gestured to move Bert into the therapy room. Diana linked arms with the Nurse and carried Bert down stairs to a sparse room that had a table in it. They laid Bert on the table and strapped him in and then forcefully shoved a wooden stick in his mouth. He was starting to tear up and mumble “no, no I will be good I don’t see things I am just kidding” Diana hooked up the electrodes and made shore the straps were tight so he could not hurt him self “Now Bert this is for your own good” She turned the voltage knob and the machine hummed as Bert wined in discomfort.
Diana upped the voltage to half the machines capacity “Just relax and the shock won’t hurt so much” She shocked him again and he started to hyperventilate. “Just one more” this time it was for five minutes in one continuous shock. Bert was trembling and whimpering from all the electricity that had coursed through him. The nurse took out the stick and undid the bindings as Diana unhooked the electrodes. Diana injected a sedative into Bert and the nurse and Diana carried Bert back to the third floor and into his room.