Wednesday, May 6, 2009

She works hard for the money (part one)

I put in my two week notice at work yesterday. It was bittersweet, because though I'm excited to move closer to home, I really love my job and am sad to be leaving it. I was so lucky to get such a great job right out of graduate school-- as a speech therapist at Billings Clinic hospital. Being a speech therapist is great. I work with patients in the hospital who have had strokes, head injuries (please wear your seatbelts), and other diseases and injuries that cause commuication, cognitive, and swallowing disorders. Though my job is pretty serious sometimes (I've seen some pretty sick people), most of the time its both fun and funny.
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One afternoon, I was with one of my patients who had a head injury. She was a delightful lady with serious short term memory deficits. We were working on some activities to improve her memory when one of her doctors came in the room. He started telling her about how her kidney function had improved and how she was healing so well overall, when she interrupted him and nodded toward me:
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Patient: She's pretty nice. . . she's your girlfriend, right?
Dr: Um no, I don't think my wife would like that very much! (He laughed)
Patient: Oh, you're married. (Then to me) Are you married too?
Me: Yes I am (I smiled. Oh and my cheeks are pretty pink. Embarrassing!)
Dr: So if you keep improving, you should be able to get out of the hospital soon and. . .
Patient: Well, thats good. And you two are married to eachother, aren't you? Or is he just your boyfriend?
Me: No, we're not married and he's not my boyfriend (I smiled again. And my face turns red).
Patient: Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you two were together.
Dr: Alright, so right now, you need to just keep focusing on your rehab. Do you feel like your memory is improving?
Patient: A little bit, I think. I'm working pretty hard.
Dr: Well keep focusing on therapy and. . .
Patient: She's pretty cute, you're lucky she's your girlfriend. And she's a nice young lady!
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Ok, so now my face is bright red. And I think I probably started sweating too.
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Dr: Oh, she's not my girlfriend, I'm married (awkward laugh). So keep up the work and you'll be out of here soon. I'll see you tomorrow!
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And he rushed out of the room. We went back to our memory work and I spent some extra time with her that afternoon. She really needed it and I was avoiding that doctor!

2 comments:

bethany said...

I love this story. I hope someday you'll publish a book. Seriously. But this is funny, and I can't wait for more volumes in your stories.

Laura said...

I'm very excited to see the up and coming parts!