Changes

I want you to go back - way back….well not that far!!!
Only about 50 years or so.
The room is in an aging hospital.
Four beds in each room
Quiet and dark
Nurse in starched white uniform and blackbanded cap enters from the hallway where stretchers and orderlies and interns pass back and forth, nurses pushing silver carts loaded with supplies for mid morning linen changes. Our nurse brings with her a basin of hot water, towels and blue hospital pyjamas.
Her task? ~ A post-operative bed bath for an elderly gentleman who has come from having a cataract removed after she has taken his temperature with a glass thermometer and taken his blood pressure with the portable Blood Pressure apparatus tucked under her arm.

‘Before we get started do you need the bedpan? No? Well let me know if you do and I can get it for you.’

Before our nurse started, she checks the eye patch covered by a thin aluminum shield and secured with adhesive tape to his right eye.  Then she checked the small towel over his forehead, and the sandbags beside each temple to make sure his head was secured. Our nurse went to the end of the bed and cranked up the head of the bed another half inch to keep her patient’s head elevated.

All her checks and the bedbath complete, our nurse excuses herself, saying to her patient ‘I’ll be back to feed you your lunch in about an hour.  If you need anything before then, just pull the call light ~ and don’t get out of bed or move your head.

As she walked away with her colleagues down the stairs to take their break, she shook her head. 'That pureed food they give our patients is terrible but, they can’t even chew heavily in these first couple of weeks.  But the eye is so very fragile when it’s been operated on, we have to do what ever we can to help it heal!’

Now…….fast forward through time……

The room is in a hospital - not really that old.
Six reclining chairs in a large softly lit, but bright, room.
Stationed at each chair, is a tall digital Blood Pressure machine that registers heart rate as well.
Soft guitar music emanates from small wall speakers.
Nurse in green OR scrubs escorts her patient to one of the chairs. Other nurses and aides guide and care for others also awaiting cataract surgery. All are dressed in comfortable street clothes.
Eye drops freeze the eye, the area around the eye is washed. The nurse points out where the bathroom is and offers an escort if it’s needed.
In a few minutes, the nurse returns to cover her patient’s hair with a blue gauze cap.

A young medical student arrives and introduces herself, escorts the patient to the small operating theater and helps her to get comfortable on the gurney.

Within minutes, her eye is prepped and isolated with a sterile, translucent field. Soon, bright lights and kaleidoscope like images flash and move across her visual field. Thankfully, she knew she believed in this surgeon. Then the plastic translucent field is removed, the patient helped to sit up and a clear plastic shield is secured over her eye with paper tape. ‘You can remove the shield when you get home and only replace it at night before you go to bed. I’ll see you this afternoon at 3pm in my office.’ Escorted out to the room she had come from only minutes before, she sat with another nurse.

“Would you like a glass of water - or would you rather have juice? I just have a couple of instructions for you - no lifting weights heavier that 10 - 15 lbs, no showers - only baths - for three weeks and make sure you take your drops as the doctor has ordered.”

Walking out in the sunshine with the friend who drove her to the hospital, they decided on a popular restaurant for breakfast and a good cup of coffee. 

“Change, like healing, takes time.”

~ Veronica Roth, Allegiant