(no subject)
We learned in Beginning Creative Non-Fiction that smell is one of the most underused, but also one of the most potent senses. When you smell something, it brings you back to wherever you were when you first smelled it.
Tonight I had an extremely hard day in the ER. Our waiting room was overflowing and spilling into the street, and none of them had come in for small matters. Today was our stroke day, with over 6 cases coming in during my shift alone. It was also metastasized rectal cancer day, where a tumor squeezed blood into a man's urine. It was gunshoot wound day. It was early-onset dementia day, where a man punched at his wife while he was getting stitches. It was diabetic neuropathy day. A man's foot had gone numb and become infected with gangrene to such a degree that everyone we consulted said, "eesh, that thing's gotta go."
Luckily, I left before they amputated his foot. It's 1AM now, and I can still smell the infection -- a weird, invasive, warm smell of soiled flesh and little hope. I'm tired.
Tonight I had an extremely hard day in the ER. Our waiting room was overflowing and spilling into the street, and none of them had come in for small matters. Today was our stroke day, with over 6 cases coming in during my shift alone. It was also metastasized rectal cancer day, where a tumor squeezed blood into a man's urine. It was gunshoot wound day. It was early-onset dementia day, where a man punched at his wife while he was getting stitches. It was diabetic neuropathy day. A man's foot had gone numb and become infected with gangrene to such a degree that everyone we consulted said, "eesh, that thing's gotta go."
Luckily, I left before they amputated his foot. It's 1AM now, and I can still smell the infection -- a weird, invasive, warm smell of soiled flesh and little hope. I'm tired.