Cooler Than Me

It’s hot as hell in NYC, but sometimes the heat has nothing to do with the act of cooling off.

Kiki-Dee, our social worker likes to stick her head in the cool trade winds of the air conditioner, and I love it. The first time she did this I was telling her about a Grey Goose martini and she became extremely clammy. I said, “Kiki-Dee are you alright?” Right then her wig started flying in all directions as she placed her face in the cold humming box.

“Kiki-Dee, won’t that wig fly right off your head?” I said with the concern of a weave master. “No child, it’s sewn in,” she explained.

I knew then and there that she was living sober. The mention of a chilled martini was bone-chilling talk and I liked this woman too much to mention a Bacardi and Coke. (I admit, I was dying to see her cool off again). The mere mention of a cocktail was a twist in her sobriety.

Kiki-Dee got her degree at NYU and her cubicle is placed in the back of the ER right next to the patient’s bathroom. Once I had to clean a trail of diarrhea next to her open-toe sandals and she thanked me for it. I was on my hands and knees and she said, “On your knees again?”

I answered politely, “It’s not the first time honey and be quiet before I tell you about Miller Light.”

I think of Kiki-Dee when I lose compassion and she mops up after me.

A young lady of 23 was brought to my area with vaginal bleeding, a common problem in the ER. Many females register with menstrual cramps and are sent home with Motrin. For this patient, I drew blood and then banded her with a type and screen since she was pregnant. I did my work in silence and she offered no conversation. She was sent to labor and delivery in a wheelchair and I continued with my work. It was many hours before I saw her again and I placed her behind curtain one where we persisted with our relationship in absolute stillness.

I was too busy to read her chart but I checked for orders and I went back to hang a liter of NS. I was shocked to find her crying. “What happened?” I asked like a complete idiot.

“I lost my baby,” she managed to say with hurt in every heartbeat.

It was the first time I had seen a woman cry over the loss of a fetus. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the sadness occurs before the return to the ER or it happens later at home. In any case I was not prepared for this kind of heartbreak. It felt like a knife in my windpipe. I stood motionless and angry at what ER nursing has taken from me. On some days, I am robbed of my compassion. For all the pain seekers, simple gastritis, return detox, and cold symptoms there comes an emergency that deserves graciousness.

I stood in the heat with a cold heart. The corrosion has taken its toll but I still needed to help this woman. For all it’s worth, I was still a nurse.

I knew where to find kindness and it was wearing a wig by the restroom. Kiki-Dee offered no complaint and followed me to the patient. I pulled up a chair for her and she sat with the young lady for about an hour.

When I asked Kiki-Dee what they talked about she said, “Nothing. Not a damn thing." I realized mere words couldn't change her reality.

"She stopped crying and she even gave a simple smile when I discharged her. You must have done something,” I said knowingly.

“I was present.”

K-D knew as well as I that sometimes we cannot comprehend the feelings of a patient if we have not experienced the same level of personal tragedy. In one moment, an unexpected milestone can happen to a patient and it is a nurse who will bear witness. “Sometimes presence is all it takes.”

Then Kiki-Dee did something to make me smile again...she stuck her head in the air conditioner. When I noticed the infinite colors of eye shadow traveling into her forehead, I laughed and said, “Be careful girl, that rushing air will blow your eyebrows off.”

Like a pro, she said, “No it won’t, I forgot to draw them on.”

And as I watched her bob her head in the brisk breeze of electronic winter, Miss Kiki-Dee took a long, cool sip from a tall bottle of water.