I'm not in pain

Sitting here in the ER at the hospital at 0200 is an interesting situation to be in right now. I’m not in pain, nothing is broken, and to the best of my knowledge I’m not dying (at least no more than normal). Everyone around me (at least the patients) are all seemingly comfortable and sleeping.

 There is however one exception, one elderly woman around the corner in the hall. She is constantly being told by the staff to get back on her gurney and stop trying to ‘fix the covers to lay on (it can’t be done without industrial adhesives and heavy duty staples). She’s been told by just about every staff member that she’ll be moved into a real bed upstairs soon, but she just keeps doing her thing and mumbles that she’ll believe it when it happens. She looks at me and says “ I’ve been hearing that for 2 hrs. and I’m still here aren’t I”. I’ll just leave her to herself and go back to my room.

The world around me looks quiet to me but I still can’t sleep. Quiet is relative, there are no loud noises here. There is nobody talking loud, no one screaming anymore, moaning or making any kind of commotion. Voices, when heard, are subdued, almost whispers. Even the outsiders are this way in the halls. So far in the last 2 hours I’ve seen at least 7 different officers of the law standing outside different doors and 8 different EMS workers that have brought people in. It seems that everyone everywhere is on mute, the noises can be heard, but only very quietly and only if you concentrate.

And here I am, I can’t sleep because of the noise. There is an all encompassing cacophony of sound around me that I can’t seem to shut out. The pulsing hum of my infusion pump. The squeakiness of rubber wheels on the linoleum, the constant quiet roar of the air circulating system. The tip clip sounds of peoples shoes on that same linoleum surface. I hear the occasional equipment alarm indicating some small malfunction somewhere. My neighbor mumbling and sniffing in her sleep since the morphine took over the pain of her appendix. Phones ringing, buzzing, and chiming. Papers shuffled, shuffled some more and shuffled again. The pneumatic tube delivery system, thumping and rumbling to life, every once in a while. Doors everywhere, being quietly opened and closed amidst whispering voices and swishing clothing.

It’s 0300 here in the ER at the hospital and I still can’t sleep, because the silence around me isn’t really silent, and I find that I have to listen to it carefully to hear it all.