The card
Sarah the nurse came up to me and quietly whispered, “Do you know Kelly?”
Of course, I know her; Kelly and I have worked for many years now as assistants in an incredibly busy veteran’s hospital psyche ward, working on the patient floors where the real insanity begins.
Kelly’s a pistol, she’s a tough bird in her mid-50s and knows her job. Others would use other adjectives to describe her: bitchy, rude, unhelpful, mean.
“Did you see the card in the compliment box?” Sarah said with a little bit of a roguish glint in her eye.
The compliment box is a sad-sorry-we-don’t-care-about-compliments shoebox covered in construction paper that sits on the assistant’s desk.
Childish handwriting scrawled across the front says, “Temporary Compliment Card Box.” Colorful flower doodles echo happy sentiments. The compliment cards are postcards of star-quality employees. Smiling. Happy.
Nearly everyone makes a comment about the word “temporary” on the box.
“Are the compliments temporary?” every single sharp-witted person says, laughing at their own wit.
It’s irritating to say the least to hear the same, sad pun revived by an endless stream of clever Merry Andrews.
The box is temporary because the original locked box was ripped off the wall by a raging patient one night and the top and lock broke in the melee. The best anyone could or would do was wrangle a makeshift temporary box that’s lasted almost 2 years.
Sarah rummaged through the box whose opening had been worn down by so many eager hands and pulled out several compliment cards. She took the card off the top and handed it to me with a smile.
“Look at this,” she said.
The card’s name space had Kelly’s name written in it and below it a list of snide one-liners:
-“You’re the worst assistant ever.”
-”Your (sic) snide and unhelpful.”
-“You give bad service and are rude.”
-“I think your (sic) the worst person in this place and you should quit.”
The odd thing is that patients are the least of the problem in the facility. The families are the worst.
When someone is injured and the family can see the injury, it’s easy to focus on the injury, whether it’s a broken arm, surgical site or ingrown toenail.
When someone’s head or their spirit is injured, it’s harder. The wounds aren’t obvious.
The world is learning about traumatic brain injuries mostly through returning service members injured in wars or military actions that caused them to get their head injured. Concussions from explosion, bullets that wing any part of the head, car accidents or blows to the head can cause invisible injuries that require professionals to diagnose the injury and the best possible treatment plan.
Trouble is only a small portion of the world understands the complexities of heads that don’t work right.
If people look normal then they must BE normal.
The problem then must be the staff. They don’t know what they’re doing, they’re not trying hard enough, the doctors are incompetent or the support staff doesn’t care.
The card was signed an illegible signature but Sarah told me a family member admitted to putting the card in there and was encouraged by staff to do so. Nobody likes Kelly. Everyone wanted to see her taken down a peg or two.
After 30 years of that kind of treatment, people get numb.
I’ve had a few run-ins with Kelly over the years, nothing serious, just differing opinions on procedure, stuff like that. We’ve always worked it out together and both give/take the same amount. Our relationship works because we invested simple practices in our relationship, things like saying hello, goodbye, please and thank you.
These are the simple things patient families forget.
When I needed to work out new schedules for three people, Kelly being one of those people, she could have put her foot down and made trouble. But she didn’t. She was kind and cooperative and because of that three assistants have schedules that make working in the crazy unit much easier.
The key to successfully working in the psyche ward is to be there as little as possible, oddly enough.
“Can you believe it? Someone finally put in writing what we all have wanted to say to her,” Sarah said.
Sarah went on to tell me that people all through the weekend had seen the card and it was frequently fished out of the box and passed around. The card brought people together. They rejoiced, they snickered and shared their stories of her bad treatment of them.
I was appalled as I heard what Sarah was saying. It’s an old song and I’ve heard it plenty of times.
“You’re so much better than Kelly, we really like you,” one would say.
“Things just go better when you’re around,” said another.
It’s like being the best house on a bad block.
Honestly, I can be just as difficult to work with under pressure and I’ve had my share of nastiness from staff and families. Most patients are too inwardly concerned with their own recovery and well being so few make fusses but the real pressure comes from the families.
In time they get with the program, they see improvements and all of a sudden we’re one of the best VA hospitals around.
Sarah put the cards back in the box and walked away, confident she had brought me into the club.
A few hours later the charge nurse came onto the floor and I grabbed the cards out of the box and gave them to her.
“You need to see this,” I said.
She smiled that smile that says, I don’t have time for this but I’ll humor you.
“No, you need to read THIS.”
Her smile quickly vanished and she said, “This is awful.”
She began to walk away with the cards in hand and I stopped her halfway down the hall.
“You can’t show her this, you can’t let her know about it,” I said.
“I won’t,” she said “We’re already working with her on some issues.”
That information is none of my business. My goal was to get that card out of the compliment box and off the floor; I didn’t want to become party to her discipline process.
After I got home the entire scenario bothered me that someone would even consider would treating a person that way, that a family member, Mennonites no less, would write such a thing.
It’s been my experience that people with a strong spiritual belief fared far better than those with no greater power to fall back on. Apparently, that family found little or no solace or compassion in their belief system.
After all, we’re REQUIRED to be compassionate towards patients and families but understand it doesn’t work in reverse. It’s not meant to and it never will.
I think about what I could do for Kelly, I like her and frankly I can deal with someone who’s as honest as she is. She’s kind to me and I can see how generous she is. She takes care of her grandchildren without compensation and she’s the keeper of the family memories. She always has time for me and when we work the same day, she’ll either call me or come visit me. She’s not all bad. Not bad at all.
I’d take someone like Kelly rather than the family member that signed that card.