Jewells of Thought

When I woke up yesterday it was lightly raining and a cloudy cold morning. I love this Carpenters Song, by the way. I grew up on their music because of my parents. My Dad likes it just as much as my Mom does I have heard them both humming and singing along with me.

Flashbacks. Yesterday being Halloween brought back a horrifying day of disbelief back into my memory. One I would really like to forget for multiple reasons. I still remember taking out the pins falling out of my long hair at that time and trembling in the seat attempting to comprehend the pool of blood in the treatment room.

Although it had been two weeks since my big test something about that day still hadn’t set well with me. Two of us took the test and we both passed it that day. It was a huge accomplishment. I thought we would be able to just marinate on this before rushing into the next procedure. I was wrong. If anything could go wrong it happened for me I was still wearing a brace due to the tiny fracture in my right arm.

However, this was different up until this point the two of us had been a bit of a team. We worked together until minutes after our test. The other lady found out there was a patient still coming in and she could get started this next procedure sooner and she pounced on it. I really didn’t want to get started after a long night of studying before, but we did everything else more or less together when we could. I literally felt my heart sink when she thought only of herself getting through the next procedure knowing we both couldn’t that same day. Maybe I was just too emotional after a long week of studying and all.

Yet talking to the manager in the office with a tear-stained face made me question everything again. My supervisor apparently had instructed the other PCT/nurse to not chime in and help me. This was her tough love approach. I don’t know why I didn’t quit that day. It would have saved me two more months of this denigrating and biased treatment. I don’t know how many times I heard the manager say in no uncertain terms that she was afraid to manage her supervisor. This was the only day she actually wasn’t afraid knowing that the supervisor should have asked for her help since she was in fact there that day.

I really hate reliving this day of all the days working there, besides my last day. I had never experienced such an unbalanced power trip like this as a cashier or at my student jobs at college. Lots of times I go past this day like any other day, but not this year those memories haunted me yesterday. I remember the Saturday before Halloween that year. It was me the Nurse/PCT and the supervisor discussing costumes for work on that Halloween morning. Vampires were what they were discussing. Obviously though the supervisor liked to talk, but didn’t come through with any costume unlike me and the Nurse. The Nurse though did have a cute idea with one of our gowns and I did my 1940’s World War 2 lady updo and pearls. I didn’t want to be the only one out of costume and thought this would be simple enough to do and fun.

I have never been much of a Halloween person through the years. Although I did dress up as Frenchy from ‘Grease’ and yes with the pink hair. Timmy Richardson though, made sure I had enough pink in my hair that it would take no less than a full week to get every last bit of pink out of my hair. Still that was kind of fun. Our crew from our class that were in the school band; dressing up from the ‘Grease Musical.’

Those flashbacks of high school are images I would rather remember than the Dialysis Clinic that were in my mind yesterday.

Life isn’t always easy and sometimes flashbacks bring the pain back instantly. I had nightmares for months from this Halloween over the past two years. Perhaps this article will make life more bearable. The ironic thing is that weeks after this happened I got a call from the corporate office asking how my training was going, both of us were supposed to get them. When I told her about this she said it was a good thing I didn’t let that one day get me out of the program. Two years later I see that as maybe one of the biggest signs I needed to get away from that place.