Encounters that you wouldn’t normally have the chances of witnessing, translated…
As I Grew Older, I’d Slowly Forgotten the Theatrics of What Happened Long Ago, But, on This Day, Over a Decade Since, Because My Husband Had an Accident, We’d Made Our Ways Back into the E.R., as I’d Waited by His Side in Treatment, and Waiting for a Bed to be Available, I Saw Many Moving Things………
from the series, E.R., photo from online…
Five Brand-New Wheelchairs
Many years ago, the village I was from, in order to celebrate the birth of the Goddess of Mercy, they’d placed a film that was already out of the theaters, it’d made all of us, children, very pleased.
After supper that evening, my great aunt took the dozen of us to the plaza before the temple. Although it wasn’t the time of showing yet, the plaza was already, packed up with the locals. Because if was a foreign film, the locals couldn’t understand English, so, as we’d watched, the group of us kids started playing amongst ourselves instead. As I got home, mom asked me, “What was the movie about?”, I’d told her, “they spoke too quickly, I couldn’t hear clearly, but, the doctors ran in and out of the emergency rooms, very busy!”
As I grew older, I’d slowly forgotten the plot, but, many years after that, on this very day, because my husband had an accident, we’d entered into the E.R., I’d accompanied him through treatment, and saw a ton of things that moved me.
The E.R. was packed, and, the space was divided into sections A, B, C, D, and E, the two beds in section A, A2, the three in section C, C3, and so on. Because there were, many patients, the beds were close, and, what’s happening to the patients close by in the same sections, the conversations with the doctors, everybody heard.
At seven in the evening, the nurse told the patient in A5, that he was due for an X-ray on the third floor, and told the families to wheel the patient up. It was an elderly man of about eighty, with his son in his sixties next to him, or maybe, it was because how packed up the E.R. was, there was, NO spare wheelchair there, he could only head up to the second floor nurse’s station to get one.
As he’d wheeled the elderly to the third-floor, finished with the X-rays, it was already, almost eight, and, as the elderly was settled down by his son, he’d told him, “It’s not too late yet, go see if the medical supplies shops are closed, if not, buy five wheelchairs and bring it here, so everybody can have it to use in the E.R.”
Within an hour, there were, five BRAND new wheelchairs, at the corner of the E.R.
A Young Man Who’d Rolled Up His Sleeves
It was, an hour past midnight, the family members who’d come to take care of their loved ones were already all too tired, and fallen asleep, but because I’d worried about my husband’s condition, I couldn’t, sit down, despite how sleepy I was feeling. I’d thought, that it was late night, and the E.R. should be quieted, but, an ambulance with the alarms rushed in.
From the hurried steps of the staff, I’m guessing, that the person must be severely injured. A little while later, I’d heard it was a car wreck, that the injured was losing too much blood, and needed a transfusion. After a few short minutes, there was, a call of a need for type-AB blood. At which time, the young man who watched over his mother, with his head down on the c3 bed, lifted his head and looked, after I’d told him, that the man needed an emergency transfusion of AB-type blood, he’d claimed, “Really, I am an AB!”, then he hurried off, to donate.
As the night passed, the dawn slowly came, it’d become, even busier in the E.R., the moment the nurses and doctors were trading off their shifts, the mother of around forty on e4, had a high-school aged daughter standing by. The doctor told her, that her mother ran a high fever all night long and couldn’t stop throwing up, and hoped that the mother can get her brain scanned, to see what was the cause, “This test will not be paid for by the National Health Insurance Agency, the nurse will hand you the slip, you can pay for the fees, then, your mother will get scanned.”
After the doctor left from stating this, the girl started crying. The woman of around seventy who was sitting by e5 saw, the girl said, that she was from a single-parent family, and she and her mother couldn’t possibly pay for the examinations, what will they do?
keeping a child company, lessening the stress of her being in the hospital, not my photograph…
The elderly heard, and patted the girl on the shoulders, took out a stack of thousand-dollar bills, told the girl to go and pay, so her mother can get the best possible care.
I can’t believe, that an accident had, given me the chance, to bear witness to so many heartwarming moments.
So, this, is something you don’t encounter daily, but, in a hospital, where life and death is at that constant pull and tug, there are, more instances like these, that will warm your hearts up, because, in the E.R., when confronted with life and death, that, is when people showed their genuine compassions toward one another.