I know that was such a long title but I did not know how else to name it. It's a long and crazy as that moment in the elevator!
Lifestylers, I have to be honest with you: I never, ever,
never, ever (did...I…say…never) thought I would find myself in the situation
that happened last week. My close friends know that there are three things in life
that could cause the people with the white jackets and hooks to come to my door:
1) a nervous breakdown 2) an encounter with a tarantula or 3) a dead body. However, recently I found out that I could
actually survive two of those (partially)…LOL
To take care of the “take-care-of,” I am presently temping
in a hospital in Jersey. So last week, my co-worker, “Janice,” decides that she
wants to take the side-bank elevators down to the cafeteria. Now I seldom take
this particular set of elevators because it is the least convenient. Since I am a temp, I was not given the new employee
guidelines and instructions, so I was not aware the rule that says when a
patient is loaded on to the elevator, everyone must vacate.
Needless to say,
here we are on our way to lunch when we pull on to a floor and a girl begins to
wheel in a gurney covered with a white sheet. Totally oblivious, I begin to
think “Wow, that patient is knocked out. That’s some serious anesthesia.” Janice is trying, according to protocol, to
exit the elevator but the girl is pushing the gurney is too fast. Again, I am
just standing there with a bunch of thoughts swirling through my head. As the doors
close, and the gurney is now less than an inch away from my body, I stare at
the sheet perplexed as there is no movement at all and wonder was I out like
that when I had surgery years ago. I glance at Janice. My lovely Ecuadorian
coworker is now turning every shade of red imaginable and is two seconds from
taking flight INSIDE the elevator. It hits me! This patient is SO NOT SLEEP!
As
if the rest of the elevator is realizing that Janice is totally about to freak
out, people are trying to hold laugh. I start to panic. The doors open and Janice followed by myself
are the first two out. We laughed hysterically.
Later that night as I reflected over that day, I realized
something: I was actually calm UNTIL Janice
began to react. Totally oblivious to
anything that was going on, I had no reaction. Even once, I realized that the
patient was on their way to the morgue, I was still alright. I mean, don’t
misunderstand I was not about to do the Macarena (yep..they still do that
somewhere) but I was holding my own. However, when she freaked…I freaked.
I began to ask myself how many times I had allowed someone
else’s response to infiltrate and become my response. A lot. I want to say “Well,
I am human,” but sometimes that becomes a permission slip to too much foolery
in my life. *smile* How about you? Have you ever been having a great day and
receive a phone call that left you with the emotions of your caller. All of a
sudden, you are angry, upset, sad or one of the other myriad of emotions that were
subliminally left in your subconscious. Ever walk in the house in a good space
and the atmosphere of your spouse, friend or even your child becomes your new
breathing space. The question is how do you remain calm in the elevator with
the dead body when the rest of the world is freaking out?
The next day, I told my coworker of my revelation. She
thought about it agreeing as to the domino effect that had taken place. I have
concluded the next time I feel myself getting saturated in the emotions of
another that I would do like they tell you when your clothes are on fire: Stop.
Drop. Roll.
I am going to STOP and think about what is exactly going on.
DROP any preconceived notions or desires to commiserate with my counterpart and
ROLL with what I know. Had I applied that concept to the elevator, it would
have looked like this:
Stop: What is happening? There is a body on the gurney.
Can it harm me? Can I see her/him through the sheet? How is it affecting me
really?
Drop: This is not
a movie. Right now, I am in no immediate danger.
Roll: Okay, I
will be fine for the next 5 seconds that it will take me to get off of this
elevator.
Now, I will be honest and say had the elevator gotten
stuck, we might have been dealing with a whole new set of methods *lol*
because once it STOPPED, I would have DROPPED and then been ROLLED out on my own
gurney.
xxx
