Rush Hour

Blissful sleep finally embraces me, too little and far too late. Someone is grabbing my arm, my heart sinks- blood pressure time. Reluctant to completely loose touch with the comfort of the dark at this ungodly hour I don’t open my eyes, I know the routine well enough to do it blindfolded, and I do, lifting an arm up into the air, finger out stretched. I can feel the coolness of the blood pressure cuff as its wrapped around my bicep. The monitor begins to whir, tightening the cuff till I can’t feel my fingers. Painfully slowly its snake like grip loosens, the nurse makes a comment. Low blood pressure for them, normal for me. As sensation in my hand returns, I pull the oxygen saturation probe off my finger. The nurse mutters, but all I can think about is getting back to sleep before the ward wakes.

Like a flower opening in the first showers of rain in the desert, the sleepy world of T9 explodes into life. Somewhere, someone flips a switch: let there be light. The comforting darkness vanishes into myth. Disjointed voices and footsteps of nurses pass by, loud greetings from friends ready to change shifts. The jangle of passes and keys from those already on duty as their tired feet carry them through the last of the morning medication round. Outside of my thin curtains, the cleaners gather by their cupboard. Chatting loudly in an oral tapestry of languages. They load their carts with mops and bags of supplies, shutting the stacked compartments with a bang. The metal lids of the bins opposite my bed crash closed, their plastic sacks rustling in the cleaners hands.

A low rumbling catches my attention, rising above the general melee. I can feel the vibrations through the floor. Gradually it builds to a crescendo until it stops dead outside the end of my bay. A small wizened man unloads its cargo- water jugs. Every inch of the trolley is covered in a small watery forest of green lids. With the care a parent would take in holding their new born child, he gently ferries his load one by one, depositing each on a patients table. The HCA sat at the desk next to my bed hums tunelessly, as the laundry cage stuffed to the brim with gowns and sheets rattles by. Fragments of conversation float over me. Doctors comparing cases, patients chatting with their nurses enjoying their last moments of freedom before hand over, their keys grinding in the locks of the medication cupboards.

I glance at the clock. 7:50. Breakfast is late, but on its way. I can smell the toast. A gaggle of nurses rounds the corner, gathered so closely round their mobile computer system they seem to move as one. Handover. The strange arrangement of uniforms stop at the end of my bed. I put my headphones on, pretending not to listen as their leader explains: allergies, tubes, observations, abilities and disabilities. No stone of my nursing existence is left unturned. It’s a tight squeeze, a gaggle of surgeons arrives. They want to get to their patient. Gathering like predators before a kill, they circle around the trolley of notes opposite my bed. They close in on their prey- the woman sleeping soundly to my left, gently snoring, doesn’t see them coming.

The ward seems to let out a collective sigh, quietness briefly regaining the upper hand. The cleaners are gone and the nurses away. The first wave of doctors and surgeons are off finding the next unfortunate on their lists. An endless procession of footsteps, dull and rhythmic takes over- the heart beat of the ward.

Ward supplies being delivered.