Cry Until You Bleed

3- Welcoming

“And over here is the common area, where you can hang out with other patients. All of the board games, books, and TVs are here for you to use we just ask that you don’t take them out of the common area without checking them out at the main desk,” The nurse tells me, motioning towards a large area that resembles a living room only way bigger than a normal living room. In two of the corners, there are TVs surrounded by three long maroon-colored couches and two end tables made of wood and throughout the room, there are small tables set up where people are playing games or reading books. Along one wall, there are a bunch of shelves full of board games, puzzles, and books. The carpet is crème colored and the walls are an off-white. There’s a big painting on the far right wall that reads “Promise me you’ll always remember: You’re braver than you believe, and stranger than you seem, and smarter than you think. –A. A. Milne”.

“Here it says that you have your therapy sessions every week day at four with Dr. Lombardi in room 024 so I’ll show you where that is,” She chirps, leading me out of the common area and down a hallway with a bunch of doors on either side of the wall with big numbers on the doors. “So it’s this one here on the left and you’ll have daily sessions with her for an hour except for weekends. She also has walk-in hours so whenever you feel like you need to talk, you can go and see her. If you want to talk when Dr. Lombardi doesn’t have her walk in hours, there are always free doctors on duty. Their offices are located in 020 and 021, they’re the first doors in the hallway.”

I just listen and follow her wherever she goes, trying to remember as much as I can about what she’s saying, but she’s saying a lot so it’s hard to keep up with everything. This is my first day here though, so everybody is telling me everything all at once as if I can remember it all. I just pretend like I can though, and follow along as much as I can.

“Your patient scrubs are waiting in your room along with all of your items that have been approved by our board.”

“Approved?” I repeat. “You mean, like they went through my things?”

She nods. “Yes but there is no judgment here. We just have to make sure that there isn’t anything in your room that could potentially be a harm to you or to others. It’s just a regulatory precaution.”

“Right,” I sigh and then we continue through the rehab center. “Okay.”

“Great,” She chirps with a friendly grin. “So if we continue this way, I’ll show you the cafeteria. Breakfast will be served from seven to nine and lunch is served from noon to two. Dinner is from five to seven.”

“Two hours for every meal?” I wonder.

“Yes but we don’t mandate meals which means that we leave all of the meal times open for so long because people come and go as they please,” She explains, which is kind of surprising to me because the place that I went to in Alaska had mandatory breakfast, lunch, and dinner which means that if you weren’t at a meal, you got in trouble because they just assumed that you were trying to starve yourself, not that you might have been busy doing something else or anything crazy like that. “However, you should consider that we do take attendance during meals and your attendance during meals will be reported to Dr. Lombardi. Now, if you miss breakfast sometimes or skip a dinner, it’s not a big deal. It will become a concern when you start missing consecutive meals or something like that. We just want to make sure that you’re staying healthy while you’re here with us.”

The nurse is about to walk me into the cafeteria when a blur of blue interrupts the path. Three people are now standing in front of us wearing light blue scrubs and I start to worry that my scrubs are going to be that bright color because I’m not a fan of bright colors- especially not with my wardrobe choices. That actually makes me want to vomit, the fact that I’ll be stuck in baby blue scrubs for the foreseeable future.