I have spent alot of time in Hospitals. I am, for all of my follies, sins and an active career despoiler of my own personal Temple of Christ, as healthy as a horse.
The last few weeks have placed me in the position of driver to-and-from ERs, waiting rooms, Doctors Offices, Walgreens Pharmacies and non-medical affiliated places of business.
We all do what we can for our family and friends who have medical issues.
Yesterday, again, a long day at the Emergency Rooms of Palos Community Hospital was required of me.
Palos Community Hospital is a busy place, but it is no Stroger, or Advocate Christ Trauma Center. Nonetheless, I was impressed by women and men who treat us all - eventually.
I was impressed not so much by the medical skills, but by their mastery of language.
I arrived at the ER a little before 7AM and just short of the ambulance arrival.
The place was immaculate and empty. Within a score of minutes Palos Community ER filled up. My ears caught the activity beyond the pulled curtains
- An attempted suicide
- A little girl who could not feel her toes following an early morning dance lesson
- More than a few elderly women who fell in their homes
- More than a few work related accidents
At 10 AM, I was asked to run some errands. Outside of the drawn curtains blue gowned nurses and uniformed EMTs pushed gurneys and carts of human wounded into the halls and giving the worried families comforting, but carefully worded assurances.
When I returned an hour later the gurneys waiting for treatment stations multiplied and the staff lost not a step, nor a scintilla of sweetness.
That I found impressive.
I am a blabby flannel mouth. These skilled medics were much more verbally and rhetorically skilled than this word larded soul could ever hope to be, because they are not only constrained by the physical afflictions and some cases hemorrhaging wounds before their compassionate eyes and in their proficient fingers, but also the jungle of jargon attached by lawyers to every document they initial and sign, or utter in public.
God Bless them!
