Shelbyville

Chapter 35

***AUHORS NOTE: (I have no tolerance for racism....I wish we could all be a little more understand and accepting of others. We have so much we can learn from the culture of others, their beliefs, their stories. We truely live in a beautiful world and I love everyone encompassed in it). ***

For the first time since I was at Shelbyville, I was grateful that I worked with neither Monica or Kyle, I didn't want to face either of them right now. I would rather work with Carrie than either of them, at least with her I could expect her to be disagreeable. With them, they were like a snake in the grass, pleasant, but ready to drive the knife in my back. However, much to my surprise, I wasn't working with Carrie either, but Carlos, the new travel nurse.

"Katie?" The lean Hispanic man asked me as soon as I entered into the room to get report from the dayshift nurses. He stood up and smiled at me, extending his hand out to shake mine.

"Yes, you must be Carlos," I said accepting his offered hand. A pair of dark rimmed thick glasses decorated his face which he nervously adjusted on his broad nose. A thin coat of gel kept his gray hued hair out of his face. I guessed him to be in his late forties.

"It's Carlos's first night off orientation tonight," Jennifer informed me. "I figured we could mix the assignments up a bit; he could take Stacey and Jorge off your hands and you can have Charles and Leon." I always forgot about Leon, he was quiet and I think I heard him speak less than ten words since I had worked there. He was a shy African American man who had lived at Shelbyville for over twenty-years. If I remembered correctly, his crime included numerous armed robberies, one in which ended up in the killing of several people during a hostage situation. He was afflicted with schizoaffective disorder which was evident by some of his bizarre activities even with his heavy dose of medication. I had learned that several of the rules on the West Wing were in place as a result of some of his mishaps over the years. The most memorable one being that patients were not allowed free reign of the television remote, ten years ago he swallowed the batteries landing him a week and a half long hospitalization and two surgeries.

"Sounds like a plan to me," I agreed. I was more than happy to relinquish my responsibilities of both Jorge and Stacey to someone else. I did feel guilty that someone else would have to deal with their headache now, but maybe they would be less combative with my male nurse. I wanted to ask how Stacey had reacted to a new nurse, a Hispanic nurse on the unit, but I didn't. Instead, I sat there and listened to the short and uneventful dayshift report of my patients. The report on Carlos's patients was much more detailed as Dr. Morrison had resumed some of Stacey's medications and made some dosing adjustments to Jorge's.

"How do you like Shelbyville so far?" I asked Carlos, mostly just to fill the silence as we walked to the nursing station, but also out of genuine curiosity.

"So far so good, it's only my first week, but I like it." I found it comical that anyone would refer to Shelbyville in an endearing manner. I tried to think back to when I first started and had been asked the similar question, I couldn't recall my response. Maybe he had worked in more treacherous environments before this assignment.

"Where did you work at before here?" He took off his glasses and busied himself with polishing the lens, avoiding my gaze.

"This is my first nursing job," he said softly. I wasn't sure if that was good or bad. He wouldn't have any other job to compare this one to, so he wouldn't know how poorly ran and shoddy the conditions were. However, this might put a bad taste in his mouth and deter him from other nursing jobs in the future.

"Wow and you chose this place of all jobs?" I asked. He replaced his glasses on his nose and smiled.

"Every job will be easier after this one." I couldn't argue with him there, if you could survive Shelbyville, you could probably handle anything. I offered for him to conduct his medication pass first. Stacey was still on suicide watch, so Dominic was confined to being his shadow for the night. I snatched up the clipboard to conduct the checks on the patients.