"The Call"

I guess I always thought I would be surprised by "The Call." I expected that it would come out of nowhere, out of the blue, like the first buds of spring. That's not at all what happened.

I was traveling off my unit to take my patient for some tests. I needed to stay with her because there was a fairly good potential for her to go down the tubes ("crumping" if they do it slow, "crashing" if they do it fast.) It had been a horrible, rushed day so far, and when I left my unit at 1pm to take her to tests, I still had not eaten or gone to the bathroom after 6 hours at work (with 6 and a half to go.)

The tests took forever and a day, or at least they felt like it. I had my cell phone with me, as I always do at work, and I could see that I had missed a call from "No Name" but I assumed it was the car donation service I had contacted about my donating my old car.

When I took my patient to her next test, she stopped puking and fell asleep. I was hanging out (I never know what to do in those situations... me, my patient, and a technician in a dark room together...) when the tech mentioned that I was free to use the computer. I logged on and accessed my patients charts, did some of my charting, checked my new physician orders, and whatnot. Since I had nothing else work-related to do, I hopped into my Yahoo account.

Immediately I saw that I had received tons of emails from the gladney_africa yahoo group, all of them expressing excitement. I quickly ascertained that the excitement was over the contents of a Gladney email, and I scrolled down to read said email. I was thrilled to hear the good news that progress was made with the court delays, and Gladney would resume issuing referrals starting today (Friday).

That's when I put 2 and 2 together. My missed call from "No Name." Yep, I was betting that was Jessica!

My hands started trembling and my stomach was in my mouth. I was internally freaking out... "they are trying to call me to give me my referral, and I am stuck in the pit of doom with my crazy lady and the never-ending tests!" Outwardly, I casually asked the tech how the test was going, and if there was anything I could to to help. That's called "Playing it cool."

I shot of some emails, posted to my blog, and hit "refresh" on every email and blog subscription I have. Finally, the tech was done and indicated that she would ask the patient transporters to come and take me and my patient back to my unit. Okay, fine. It was still only 1:30 in Texas... plenty of time, right? Just play it cool.

15 minutes later I tried maneuvering the honking-big bed that contained my vomiting patient out of the tiny exam room and into the hall. Transport was not there, she had puked and pooped everywhere, and I had a referral to get! Thankfully, my charge nurse came and helped me get my patient back to the unit. On the walk back, I informed my charge nurse of the likelihood of getting my referral, and she indicated that she would do everything she could to help me get that call as soon as possible. Talk about a lady who played it cool!

Unfortunately, when I got back to the unit, it was time to discharge one of my other patients to another facility. I had been gone for almost 2 hours, and nothing was ready. I had to clean her up (she had wet herself), get her paperwork ready, and call report to the other facility. Of course, I was running around like an idiot, unable to concentrate on anything!

During that time, I checked my voicemail, and it was indeed Jessica that had called me. I shot her an email letting her know I was at work and tied up with a patient situation, but that I would love to talk to her... (hint, hint.)

Once I discharged my patient, it was time to do another round of assessments on my 2 remaining patients (I work in a ICU step-down/step-up unit, so my patients are not on ventilators, but they are the people who are crumping or just came off a ventilator...) I hadn't checked on one of my patients in 3 hours because I was traveling with the other, so I had to see him first. He was... needy. But when I told him why I was grinning from ear to ear, he told me to get out of his room and take my call:) He's officially my favorite patient ever!

In the mean time, the test lady had pooped again (I am totally prepared for giardia, by the way.) So I had to clean her up. Whilst doing that, I was paged for a call. Internal or external call, I asked. Oh, internal, they said. I rushed to the phone, hoping it would be the doc I had paged, and hoping he would give me an order for meds to make my lady stop puking.

It was Jessica.

"Hi Grace, I have some really good news for you!" she said in her sweet voice.

"Um, and I would really love to hear that good news, but I am kind of tied up at the moment" I replied in my warbling voice.

We made arrangements so that I could call her back... but right before we hung up, she dropped the bomb that she did have to leave a little bit early today. WHAT??? How long did I have to get back to her? Jessica assured me that if she did not hear from me, she would call before she left.

Time seemed to change, and suddenly, tasks that should only take a moment seemed to be taking hours. I went back to clean up my pooper, and managed to get my assessments and vitals done and my medications passed. I was sure hours had gone by. I was sure Jessica would be gone for the weekend by the time I got to a phone. I felt sick to my stomach.

I grabbed my charts and headed to the front desk. That was the only place I knew of that had a long-distance phone and a computer with Internet, so I was about to meet my Sparrow with the whole world (or what felt like it) looking over my shoulder. At that point, any way of meeting her sounded perfect.

I dialed Jessica's number and logged into the computer while it rang. Before I even finished logging in, Jessica picked up.

"Grace, it is so good to finally give you this referral! You have no idea how happy I am to do this!"

"It must be like when I tell my patients that their test results came back normal and they don't have cancer or something!"

Okay, maybe that was a bad analogy.

Multiple interruptions later (seriously, doctors and nurses are nosey!) I had gone over everything with Jessica. In the mean time, John had run across the hospital to be with me, and was busy quickly plotting out growth charts and whatnot, (not to mention paging the pediatrician to get to my unit STAT!)

The memory is both vivid and faint, and I remember telling Jessica "This is not at all what I expected- this isn't how I expected to feel, or what I expected this process to be like." Really, I think that is true about parenting, and life in general. It never is what we expect. More often than not, God blows our expectations right out of the water. I can't imagine a more perfect way to meet my Sparrow.

Of course, I totally forgot to hand out the "It's A Girl!" gum cigars my mom had sent me:)