soap

I used to work at a Children's Hospital. Actually, I like to say that I used to work at a Children's hospital because that sounds both noble and grown up. In truth - I had an internship at a Children's Hospital. Well, that's not even fully true. They didn't call me an intern, because at a hospital the word "intern" has greater, more specific meaning than it does out in the world. And I wasn't that. I was a practicum student. Sure, go ahead and diminish my title by putting the word "student" right at the end of it. I was 21. And in an undergraduate "psychology internship" class.

To this day, I am fondly reminded of my time at the Children's Hospital every time I pee at a medical facility. Which is often. I find myself at some appointment or another at least once a week. And I always have to pee.

The reminder is the soap. That universal, ultra-disinfecting, distinctly-scented soap which is in the bathrooms of many medical offices and was also at that Children's Hospital.

It makes sense that the hand soap would by my main memory link. Most of what I did at the Children's Hospital was wash my hands. Upon arriving. Before touching any child. After touching any child. And every few minutes, just cuz.

What doesn't make sense is that the memory is fond. (Although it clearly is. I sigh in distant pleasure each time I enter a medical bathroom and am greeted with that sterile scent.) I was miserable during my time at the Children's Hospital. Miserable and bored and sad. My "practicum" was vague, leaving me free to wander hospital halls and wash my hands compulsively for 10 hours per week. I was studying with the Child Life department, with therapists who specialize in hospitalized kids and their families. Their job is to normalize the death of a child, provide a "school environment" to kids who rarely breathe outside air and think hospital food is real food, and hold babies whose families can't hold them during business hours because when your six month old has spent the better part of five months hospitalized, and perhaps on kidney dialysis, at some point you have to go back to work. That’s what the Child Life Therapists did. I did things like, well, whatever I could come up with. Like hand washing. Or rearranging the books in the playroom. Once they let me lead “medical play” which happens for an hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays during “school.” That’s with dolls and Band-Aids and syringes with no needles and puke buckets and gauze and sometimes even water. I was supposed to check the census each day, and go to the rooms of the kids by whose name there was a note like, “would like a visitor” or “check with charge nurse first.” But I tended not to because I didn’t really know how to find the charge nurse and was scared of knocking on a closed door even when the room contained someone who “would like a visitor.”

My favorites were the babies. I liked them because they weren't critical and weren't likely to tell me I was too young. I feared that a lot at that time in my life - people telling me I was too young to be X, Y, or Z. Working in a Children's Hospital, for example. I even remember a couple names. There was Bear. I don’t think that was his real name. He was in a lot. He was about one, but acted like a big five month old. He had a shunt put in his head during one of his visits. Sometimes we called him Osito. It was so sad to see how he changed over the months. The first time he was in he was happy and friendly. The next time I saw him he knew too much about hospitals. He was jaded and scared and on guard. He didn’t trust. I would go into his room with a sterile gown on and he would cry and pull the blanket up over his body, cowering in his cage. That’s what baby hospital beds look like. Cribs with bars that go ALL the way up. But he liked to be held. I spent a few hours one day holding Bear. Rocking in his rocking chair. Baby rooms usually had rocking chairs. I was supposed to spend a little while with one patient and then move on, but I just couldn’t put Bear down that day. I can’t, in good conscience, leave a baby alone for goodness knows how long. A few times I tried. But he would cry as I began to separate him from my chest. And I cried. And I kept holding him.

There was Miranda. She rarely went home. The floor I was on was for chronically sick kids. The repeats. The regulars. Not the cancer kids, they had their own floor. It was the odd, rare genetic disorders mostly. Miranda was about a month old when I met her. She looked like a tiny baby. A normal, tiny baby. One day I noticed her room was empty, and then there was a new kid, and I missed her rosy cheeks but was glad she was home. A month or so later Miranda was back, looking like a sick, tiny baby. And she stayed. Days like that I decided I’d never have kids. I just couldn’t. Look what can happen to them.

That’s why I washed my hands. Sometimes it was too hard to walk the halls and see Miranda back again. So I stayed in the bathroom with the door locked.

There was a little boy who zoomed around the halls on a small riding toy. I assumed he was four, but I think he was seven. Just very small for his age. He carried a spice shaker with something red in it. The nurses called it paprika because it looked like paprika. But it wasn’t. He said it wasn’t, but I could never quite understand what he said it was. He called it Sprinkles. He liked to shake it onto his hand and eat it. He was rough with the dolls during medical play. He was wiry and spunky and fun. I loved playing board games with him. One day I met his dad and he was gruff and sharp, a little mean. I was struck with the amazing resilience of children, of this little boy who had lived seven years in this four-year-old body and could always crack me up.

The hardest was the Spanish speaking families. They didn’t know what was going on with their kids. The doctors and nurses couldn’t tell them. Hard to believe, but even in this fairly big city there didn’t seem to be many Spanish speaking medical professionals. They were the hardest, because I knew I could help them if I wanted. And on the other hand I couldn’t. I was too shy to help them. I had trouble even speaking English in that place.

There were older kids who played video games. When they asked I’d roll a video game cart into their room, position it around tubes and wires so they could see.

Sometimes I just watched TV with kids. Sometimes we talked. There were board games and card games and art projects. I often suggested reading a book. One or two days a week someone with a guitar would sing songs in the hall. I often walked with a baby to dance near the music. When the weather was nice there were outdoor toys to use in the courtyard.

But mostly I just washed my hands. I liked the warm water – true warmth being sparse in that place.

And now when I smell that same soap I smile to myself. Apparently some part of me is able to remember past those dreary halls with their revolving doors, and think fondly about the time when I worked at a Children’s Hospital.