An Exciting and Learning Experience Part Two

This is the continuation of my story about the volunteer work I did at Brooklyn Hospital while going to university.

Unexpected Birth Defects

To this day I will never understand how something like that could happen but when we think about how much more chemicals and other substances are put into our food it becomes a question of what was responsible. When I did volunteer work at the Brooklyn Hospital it was in the early 1980s and even then no one was safe from the elements and who could tell what was dangerous and what wasn’t. I was just glad that the head nurse knowing I was here for a learning experience as well shared this tragic event with me.

A very young woman came in at the beginning stages of labor. She was assigned to a room right away to be monitored. I remember her doctor arriving and there was some sort of discussion going on. The young woman was unhappy because her boyfriend hadn’t come to the hospital with her. The obstetrician assured everyone that this was going to be an easy birth and that the young woman was clean from any drugs or harmful substances.

Soon they wheeled her down to one of the delivery rooms. It was a slow afternoon and I was just standing in the doorway of the exam room when I heard a commotion going on down the hall. The incubator with the baby was pushed out first and I saw the upset look on the head nurse’s face. She looked at me and motioned for me to come over to the incubator. I was wondering what was up and she knew that this would be quite a learning experience for me.

I walked over and she lifted aside the blanked covering the baby. It was a boy and had no left arm and no left leg. I was shocked and I asked her how this baby was to exist. She sadly shook her head and said that if he did live it would really be a tragedy. The young woman’s doctor was at a loss because as far as he knew she had followed all the rules and was not into anything dangerous. Certainly nothing that would endanger her unborn child. Well we can only speculate on what we hear.

I helped another nurse take the young woman up to gynecology. They weren’t putting her in with the other new moms of course. She was a bit groggy from the delivery but I know she was distressed to find herself in the gynecology ward. If I remember correctly they hadn’t told her about the baby they were waiting for her parents to come. I just said some prayers because I knew what was going to happen when she heard. Later that afternoon the head nurse came up to me and quietly told me that the baby boy had mercifully died. I know that God knew it was better to give him wings and make him an angel. However this incident made me wonder why and how if indeed the young woman had done everything to give birth to a healthy baby.

Ricky Ricardo Alive and Well and Living in Brooklyn

The following afternoon I was ready to take on the maternity ward. I arrived at work and was met by the head nurse. She was already worn out and it was only after 12 in the afternoon. I admired this woman right from the start. She ruled the maternity ward with an iron fist, took no nonsense and praised those who deserved it. She herself was handicapped with a bum knee which she strapped with a leather belt specially fashioned to fit like a harness about her knee and never complained. She saw me and gave me a smile because I was about to take a load of work off of her hands. As time went on I was proud of the fact that she befriended me because this reflected on the hard work I did. Anyway that particularly hot summer’s day in the shadows of the ward the dreaded blackboard was already full. There were around six names of women who were in various stages of labor and getting ready to be rolled down to the delivery rooms. Lucky me.

Since I couldn’t pass over the yellow line I knew that I would be manning the nurses’ station and even answering the phone if any calls were passed through from the hospital phone operators. Yes, folks those were the days when hospitals had whole phone centrals set up in the basement with operators answering the calls. There was even a telegraph. The biggest of my worries was that I also would have to accept young mommies and bring them into the reception and first exam room. Slowly but surely that day I was to discover that I could easily become bilingual because I would start to pick up Spanish words and phrases from those who spoke no English or broken English.

My other worry was that one of those mommies might just happen to go into labor and all the labor rooms were full at least now and also I wouldn’t be able to take her into one of those rooms as they were beyond that yellow line. I was beginning to eye it like the yellow brick road. Soon it did happen. One by one women were being wheeled into the two delivery rooms at the end of the long hallway and soon I was all alone in an empty maternity ward at least the part I was in charge of. So I went about the tasks assigned to me and kept an ear out for anyone coming into the maternity ward or the lusty cries of newborn babies.

That’s when Ricky Ricardo entered my life. For those of you who remember and those who know the popular comedy "I Love Lucy" he was Lucy’s Cuban husband who was absolutely stressed out when she went into labor. Well my Ricky was going to be Spanish not Cuban but everything else would come together. As I was about to content myself that things were going to be quiet there was the sound of the double swinging doors opening up. A young couple had arrived as the wife had been given an appointment for a special exam as she was due in a week. I assured the husband that everything was going to be alright and asked him to wait outside. I took the woman into the first exam room and proceeded to try to fill out the chart which was required for the nurses to look at. I discovered that even if she spoke broken English I could communicate and was amazed that I could fill in that chart. Then it happened. She got a dreadful look on her face and then doubled over. That baby had decided it didn’t want to wait another week and before I could react water was pouring down from the plastic chair.

Well I knew what that meant the volunteer was in hot water. I helped her up looking to see that both of us didn’t slip on the tile floor and knock ourselves out. That would have been one for the books lying with a patient in labor unconscious on the exam room floor. Carefully I took her to one of the beds in the room and helped her lie down. Since there were no more contractions at the moment I helped her off with the wet panties and dress and helped her on with a hospital gown and then went to tell hubby that he was going to be a daddy a lot sooner.

He was nervously pacing and murmuring under his breath and sounding for all the world like Ricky Ricardo waiting for news of his Lucy. He nearly jumped when I addressed him. As best I could I explained that his wife had gone in labor. He looked at me pop eyed and grabbed his head with both hand and said, ”Aye, ya, yaaaa” For all the world there was Ricky Ricardo in the flesh and it took me all I had not to just burst out laughing hysterically. I was ready for a good laugh. I returned to the exam room to find the mommy having a grand contraction so I timed it and charted it and was wondering what to do when mercifully the head nurse showed up. She was amazed at how much I had been able to do and very pleased. She took the mom to one of the now empty rooms and her name was placed on the black board. Our friend Ricky Ricardo survived a few more reprimands from me to be patient and became the proud daddy of a baby girl with all the dark Spanish type olive skin, black cherry like eyes and even a small bit of black curly hair.

Heartbreaking Child Abuse

There were times that summer when I volunteered in the maternity ward at Brooklyn Hospital that due to being in constant cold drafts from air conditioners I caught bad colds. One such day I spoke to the woman who ran the volunteer service and she decided that it might not be good for me being around the expectant moms but that I could go to do some work on the pediatrics ward.

It excited me to be able to see the children there and perhaps make their day a bit sunnier. The ward had a large playroom at the end where the children who weren’t’ so ill could spend their days. It had a wall of windows which brought in the bright sunlight. I found a little dark skinned boy sitting alone in his room on a chair. He was about four years old and both of his little feet were swathed in white bandages. He looked so sad. The nurses shocked me when they told me that he was a child abuse case.

When he was brought in both of his little feet were badly burned with obvious signs of cigarette butts being put out on them. I shuddered to think about such a thing. Who would abuse this innocent little child? His case was pending and he had to remain in the hospital for quite awhile. After his feet healed he would have to learn to walk all over again.

Since there were no other children who needed direct attention I started speaking to him. This little fellow knew English but I believe he was of Spanish decent. At first he wouldn’t let me get too close but after a bit he began to speak to me. At four years of age he could draw incredible pictures. Slowly I asked him if he wanted me to take him into the playroom. He finally agreed and a picked him up and off we went. Do you know how it hurt me to hear him say to me as we walked over to the window, “Over there is where my mommy lives”. Now I hoped that his mom was not the abuser but surely his dad? or her boyfriend? had been. I could never understand such abuse toward little children. I just hugged him closer and held him as we walked about the playroom. Then I sat him in one of the chairs and gave him some paper and crayons to draw.

Finally in the late afternoon I had experienced enough to last a lifetime. The mother holding her baby who had a syndrome which made him incredibly large. The little girl whose parents apparently loved her because they had brought her to the hospital and stayed with her throughout the night. She had contracted a bad virus but afterwards never got visitors not even her parents. I was told her parents might have abandoned her. The child who cried himself into hiccups constantly and also had no family beside him. I began to think I had landed into some sort of crazy world which I could never understand. It also made me think about what would be the fate of all of those children being born in the maternity ward.

Finally it was time for me to leave. I gathered up that little boy I had befriended and brought him back to his room. To this day even after I explained why I had to leave I remember his words, “You are like all the rest.” “Everyone always leaves me”. You know at that moment I knew in my heart that if I wasn’t a university student but a woman who was already married that I would go home and ask my husband to consider finding out if we could adopt that little boy. Skin color, nationality, nothing mattered except a sad and so abused little boy crying his heart out. .

And pretty soon the summer was over and so were my days of doing volunteer work. It was a summer I would not have missed for anything in the world and always stays in my memory.