F*cking Fridays

You say Thank God it's Friday, I say F*ck, It's Friday. Fridays are by far the busiest day in the week. It seems as if everyone is rushing into the hospital for his or her all-inclusive stay. The hospital food sucks -- for patients, for us employees it freekin' rocks. They put time and effort into our food, not the mass-produced patient crap.

So today walked in "Allan", a 46-year-old homeless man complaining of abdominal pains. You are about to become best friends with Allan because he comes in weekly. Allan has probably cost the hospital over a hundred thousand dollars in free medical treatment. Allan is a nice man, but he ruins the free medical care for everyone who really needs it. He comes in on the weekends or cold nights because there’s a warm bed, hot food, and free cable. Not to mention since Allan’s real abdominal pain - where he was stabbed by another homeless man for food and change - he became addicted to pain killers.

At around 7:30 PM, a 55-year-old man named "Paul" came in by ambulance. The man was hollering as the paramedics brought his stretcher into the hospital wing. I rushed over to the man in the stretcher and his hollering ceased. He stared at me in my white jacket, my tan and thin complexion and my blonde hair. He told me I looked just like him when he was my age. I placed two fingers on his wrist and took his pulse; his heart was racing but starting to slow. We brought him into the west wing, where I studied his chart curiously. The paramedic had scrawled onto the chat that he was suffering from complications of Agent Orange. Paul was a Vietnam Veteran. Paul was in no mortal danger but in pain, I sat with him and talked with him. I need vaguely what Agent Orange was, but he sat down and filled me in with more information. Agent Orange was an herbicide that the United States used to spray over the forests and vegetation in Vietnam. To be concise, it's an extremely toxic chemical and our soldiers slept and lived next to these large barrels of these chemicals. Paul grabbed my white coat and pulled me close. Don't waste time with work he told me. Pursue woman instead, it was my biggest mistake. I was speechless, I didn't have a clue what to say, and Paul knew this. Life is short. He added. Again, I was speechless, I felt as though he was listening to my iPod with me before I came into work.

An old man gave me a tip he said
"Don't waste your time with politics" he said
"Just chase skirts instead"
"Life is too short, and you're almost dead" he said
"I met a woman once, I gave her my best shot"
"But never did I talk and talk and talk"
"If I had her back, I'd be as real as my age"
"I so don't blame them, I wouldn't do the same"
"But I can blame them, I'd sing her this"
- Lyrical Lies by Cute is What We Aim For

So, from now on I pledge to give woman more respect than I give them now. Paul's words are so bone chilling that I can't stop thinking about what he said. On the medical side of Paul, he was admitted for Chloracne, one of the symptoms of Agent Orange exposure. We admitted him so he can undergo more tests to see if Agent Orange has any other effects on him. I worked until 11:30 tonight, and once the Friday night rush went slow, I spent my time with Paul. There is so much to learn from older people.