My World and Welcome (Back) to It

Lemme Tell ya, Folks, I was SOOOO scared!



A little background, to set this up- when I was young, and more foolish, I was the victim -survived several sexual attacks. Before I came to hospital. I was anxious to the point i would beg DH to stay home from work any time a strange man was expected- plumber, cable guy, whatever. I could not stand being alone in the house with a strange man. I tell you that so you will get why I was so scared last night when a resident I had never met before crept stealthily into my room.

He was in a wheelchair, and. in other circumstances might have looked comical, cr-e-e-e-eping into my room. But, it was in the dead of night, and I had been sound asleep, so I started awake. Having been "Visited" a few times before by residents who had gotten confused and gone wandering, I assumed this was his problem and told him several times, in various degrees of politeness vs. anxiety and irritation, that he had come to the wrong room. All the while I was pressing the call button to summon aid.

I tried a couple of times telling him as nicely as I could that he was in the wrong room. It's hard to sneak in a wheelchair but he did it - cr e-e-e-eping along the floor. .He whispered in a dry gravelly voice "Call the police!"

"What what what??", I stammered. ."Why?"

"Call the police!", he repeated creeping closer, and starting to fumble with the privacy curtains that surround my bed.

I pressed the Nurse call button again, harder, as anxiety won out over politesse. OPEN the Curtain! !" , I shouted! He had nearly gotten them closed. He pulled them open again. "Now, I was an operator (true), I can help you with the cops. . Why am I calling them?"

"mumble, room mate mumble mumble"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a CNA dawdling along in the hallway, apparently in answer to my summons. "HELP!" I shouted as loud as I could. "Please, Goddess please, help me!"

The CNA came in and dragged his chair away while he muttered incoherently and tried to scratch her hands away. Suddenly, the room was lit, and several people came in. I told the whole story, emphasizing that he did not hurt me. At the same Time I was thinking that if he had wanted to hurt me I would have been very dead, and wondering what about his room mate made him so desperate to call the cops. Was he dead or something?

The Med Nurse came in just as I was calling my DH to tell him what happened , and suggested strongly that he should call the Admin guy since I doubted he would ever hear about it from staff. She asked me if I was hurt, and what the man had said to me. I repeated the story she had just heard me tell my DH. She looked at me like I had two heads. "He said 'room mate'? He doesn't speak English. He only talks Spanish to us."

"He spoke it to me.", I repeated firmly. "He said 'room mate', clear as a bell. I couldn't hear what about him, though."

She continued to look at me as if I was the crazy one. After a little while, she left, and I spent the rest of the night alone except for a CNA camped outside my room on a folding chair - presumably to discourage other late-night visitors. This morning, I hear from the morning Med Nurse that the man in question DOES speak English. Sometimes. To a select few. Apparently, he doesn't cotton to the Phillipinas on the staff. Here I am victim once again to racism, and it isn't MY race that's the problem!

Annnnyway, I am surviving this morning,hoping I will get to see Admin Guy who may be taking today off to recover. I wish i could!