April 28, 2016

cleanliness

I walk into the call room, enjoying the mild muffling of the constant noise that a hospital brings. It's not a complete silence but it's close enough. I open the door to the bathroom and I am greeted by this scene.


I'm not even sure where to begin with this. I've been to the ER multiple times and hospitalized once forcing me to miss an entire rotation necessitating the need to repeat it. One ER doc suggested frequent irrigation of the now mostly healed wound. This is a hospital. Cleanliness ought not be a goal on par to the task of the Mars Rover. But when a toilet occupies the shower, words escape me. Specifically, a flow of four letter words escape my mouth. What maintenance person does this?

I move the toilet only to find the handle does not work. It slides on and off as easily as a toilet fits in the shower. But it fails to turn the water on or off. I pull a pair of rusty old pliers out of my backpack (don't ask) and use that to turn the shower on and off. 


I finish my shower hopefully thereby avoiding another ER visit but not without wondering about trying to keep one's sanity in a hospital such as this. 

2 comments:

Unknown said...

If you had become a surgeon, the rusty pliers would not have been such a surprise.

Isaac said...

Sadly, I had better instruments when I was spoiled during my research days. German and Swiss steel. Much better than what we use.