Catching The Pass

I’ve had quite a few harrowing experiences in the job force as I look back upon my years in it. And I’ve had a various array of jobs as well. However, when I think of the absolute worst experience that surpasses all others, even being shot at or puked upon, I think of one of the times when I was an orderly.

I was in college at Kent State University back in Ohio. I grew up in Warren, Ohio – a small town in the northeast corner of the state. And I was lucky enough to have landed a really good paying job as an orderly in a hospital right out of high school, which allowed me to pay for most of my own college tuition. Well, I use the term lucky enough, loosely, because although I was lucky in regards to having a good paying job, the job itself was very humbling. The experiences were at each opposite end of the spectrum of being extremely enlightening to be able to help people at their worst and most vulnerable times and being extremely humbling to be able to help people at their worst and most vulnerable times.

This one evening, it had been an outrageously busy shift and it was nearing the end of it. It was about 11 o’clock and the shift was ending in 30 minutes. Thank god. Some of us were going out for some beers and I certainly needed it. This one poor patient had been constipated for days. Well, after administering prune juice, prunes and ducolax (laxatives), we might as well have just stuck dynamite in her ass. Because things began popping out of there like you wouldn’t believe. We were practically running for helmets. It was not unlike an endless parade of clowns coming out of a Volkswagon Beetle, although the aroma was a bit different…as were the sounds.

Well, we would double glove and triple glove, and this way, there was less of a chance that one of your fingers would tear through the plastic and make contact with something unpleasant (we learned from experience). And once a pair was soiled, one could just remove the outer pair and still have another underneath. Brilliant, no? Unfortunately, it can give one a false sense of security.

So, the poor woman just kept pushing them out. We would just finish changing the linens underneath her and she’d go again…in the bed. And we’d change it again. And we were sweating and tired and ready for beer. And she was sweating and tired and ready for a dry ass. And she’d do it again. Well, I was going through gloves like nobody’s business. The bed was once again fresh and the clock was ticking and I had just disposed of my last pair of gloves. I was near the end zone and I was determined to not let this go into over-time, ‘cause I really wanted to get out of there. Well, so did something else. And as the patient was on her side, lying upon a fresh bed of linen and it was at the end of the game, she passed the ball…or log. And in my haste to not let it touch the clean bed, I caught it…barehanded.


I previously wrote this recollection for Susan over at www.yourownwords.blogspot.com - where there happens to be a new topic: Horrible First Date Stories