Every morning, at five thirty my alarm would go off, buzzing incessantly until my head cleared the sleep out of itself enough for my motor skills to kick in and turn it off. I would get up, out of bed (Except when I overslept), stumble around as quietly as I could (Since Channing and Jesse didn't have to be at work until much later . . . bastards), get dressed, get a drink of water, and stagger across the street to Arkansas Children's Hospital where I worked. I slid my card through the reader, pulled open the door, and squirmed my way to the Surgery changing room. The code was easy to remember, since it was only one digit away from my home phone number, and upon entering I would remove the last vestiges of my ties to AmeriCorps (i.e. the uniform) and don THE SCRUBS OF DOOM which really were quite comfortable. A quick jaunt down the hall brought me to the door marked Authorized Personnel Only, which I would sashay through, and I would be ready to go.
The term "Anesthesiology" for what Anna and I did in the morning is kind of a misnomer. We didn't have all that much to do with the Anesthesiology department, aside from using their changing rooms. They should have called it Pre-Op or something like that. But what we did there was fantastic. I hesitate to call it work, because it didn't feel like work at all. I would call it fun, but that also seems inappropriate. Our responsibilities fell into two categories: Playing with kids, and Blowing bubbles.
Playing with kids: Maybe Anesthesiology isn't such a misnomer after all. We were a kind of psychic anesthesiology for the kids, a distraction. We worked in the Pre-Operation rooms of the Ambulatory Surgery department. Every day between sixteen and forty people would be scheduled for surgery, and most of them were five years old or less. At that age, you sill don't understand what the whole process is about, and the concept of "We have to hurt you to make you better" can be pretty terrifying. As a result, many of the people who came into one of those four rooms were, to be colloquial, freaking out. Anna and I would show up with our Bag-o-Tricks, with Pooh Bear faithfully strapped to the back, and have some fun! While the Specialty Nurse talked with the parents/legal guardians, asking them about medical history, oral consumption of food-substances and other such questions, we would read the child stories, or play games, or, if they were old enough, just chat. We generally wouldn't go in with children under about five months of age (They're too young, and we don't want to scare them any more), or children over ten or eleven (They're old enough that they probably want to know what's going on, and distraction wouldn't be appreciated), unless they were developmentally challenged in one way or another. Where's Waldo was always popular, and one of my favorite toys was the Pooh puppet (Though Anna didn't use that one as much). There were also some toys in the rooms already, like puzzles, and the kids generally liked those.
Blowing Bubbles: Occasionally, there were kids who just didn't want to be consoled, no matter what you did. When even the Star Wars Sound Book failed, it was time to bring out The Bubbles. For those of you who have been dead the past two hundred years, bubbles are a soap solution that comes in a plastic bottle (Or in our case, a no-spill container) with a Magic Wand. Blowing through the wand after some of the solution has been gathered upon it results in the most beautiful bubbles floating peacefully around the room. Anna and I became quite accomplished bubble blowers in our six weeks in that department. We would blow large bubbles, little bubbles, lots of bubble, double bubbles, bubbles inside of bubbles (Marty was the master of that), all kinds of bubbles. With very few exceptions, these cheered up every little kid who came in. One problem: The younger kids, who haven't fully figured out how the whole system works, want to hold onto the bubble wand. And if you let them, they will invariable stick it in their mouth, which tastes nasty (I found that one out the hard way). So don't let them.
Our supervisors were all really great people too: There was Fe, who was always cooking something up and had lots of amusing anecdotes about her children, Marty, an accomplished craftsman whose scrubs had fish and other cute things on them, Liz, who was always friendly and without her Readers' Digests the down times would have been excruciatingly dull, Sandra, who helped train the both of us on our first day there, Jill, who was in a perpetual good mood and could bring a smile to your face no matter what, Ashley, who was particularly good with the kids, Buffy, who had Batman and Curious George name tags, Mimi, who gave me nine pairs of shoes, Eddie who was always laughing and cracking jokes and smiling, and all the others we didn't interact with so much. The mini-sponsor for this project was Debra Fanurik, head of the Pediatric Pain Department, and she was also a fantastic person, who involved Anna and me in the CARE program (Central Arkansas Rescue Effort, I think) and took us out to dinner on several occasions. Overall, Everybody was great!