06/10/11, 16:25; Location: Death Floor

Today is Pastor Chao's birthday. Which she neglected to tell me. I am now letting her suffer alone in a Anti-Sexual Harrassment seminar as punishment. Mehehehe.

Just finished translating the website! When I'm on the second to last paragraph, Pastor Chao drops by, looks over my work, and says, "Wow, you translated every sentence. I only needed the general outline of each paragraph." "..." I hope that seminar is AWKWARD. With DIAGRAMS. And SKITS.

Pastor Chao has been dreading going to the Shoufeng Psych Ward for the past few days. One of her patients who caused quite a ruckus at the main hospital recently voluntarily checked herself in there. This hitherto unnamed female had come into the hospital with a small blade and started shredding pamphlets in the stairwell. One of the social workers managed to convince her to surrender the blade, but when security came to escort her off the premises, she got violent. She escaped into the basement female bathroom (convenient because all the guards were male) and proceeded to make as much noise as she possible could. Pastor Chao was summoned because she has had contact with this particular patient before. She finally convinces the patient to come out and leave the hospital patiently. She also gave the patient her office number so she could seek help whenever she needed it. Needless to say, there have a been a lot of calls for Pastor Chao lately. On Fridays, Pastor Chao goes to Shoufeng to lead activities for the Acute and Dementia patients. Fortunately, this particular patient decided not to take part in today's activities. This might be because she doesn't know Pastor Chao is the one who leads them. Or, it could be because yesterday, the hospital contacted her mother after a social worker had promised her that they wouldn't. We were told that she was furious. Some of the hospital staff are worried that the patient will check herself out (which she's allowed to do because she voluntarily checked in) and seek retribution on the social worker in question. In any case, she could have checked out already, or she could still be in lock-down after her episode yesterday.

I got the crap scared out of me today in the dementia ward. As I mentioned previously, there are a few female acute patients temporarily living in the dementia ward. I was walking around, helping with the activities, when I turn around to find a face literally two inches away from mine. I'm like, "Oh, holy shit!" A young woman was staring intently at my cartilage piercing. My first irrational fear was "Oh my God, she's going to rip it out." So I subtly tried to turn my body to face her. She turns with me, so that my profile is still facing her. My heart is still racing from the initial shock. But I'm like "OK. I'm being ignorant. Treat her like I would a normal person." So I try to smile at her.

"Is that a piercing?"
"Yes."
"Did it hurt?"
"Yes. (In my head: Not as much as if you rip it out.)"
"More than the ones on the bottom?"
"Heck yes."
"Oh."

And then she just casually walks away and puts her head down on the table. I'm still bewildered like "What the heck just happened?" It took a while for my heart to feel normal. I think I've been traumatized by all the horror hospital stories I've been told. The perks of staying with Pastor Chao.

Some of the stories are funny. In a certain hospital (not Mennonite), a patient died every day around the same time, on the same floor, in the same room. (OK, the story does not start funny.) Rumors started that the room was haunted or cursed. A doctor later discovers the real reason behind the mysterious deaths. The old cleaning lady, who was paid to come in everyday and vacuum, would unplug the patient's life support to make room for her vacuum plug. When she was done cleaning, she would plug the patient back in. I'm not sure if this is a true story or not, but...HILARIOUS.

I also get to hear all the hospital gossip. Apparently, the hospital is having some troubles with its surgeons. One is infamous for being dirty. He refuses to wash his hands before surgery and wears his scrubs out and about. The other is very nice to patients but becomes somewhat of a demon when he enters the surgery room. He screams at nurses and several have already quit because of him. This causes a vicious cycle as the inexperienced new nurses just piss him off more. There's also the story of the hospital executive who got demoted because he was/is having an affair. His coworkers are pissed that he wasn't fired (for violating the ethics code of the Mennonite Hospital. Also understandable because his position was Head Pastor) and it's super awkward having him around the office. There be cold shoulders all over the place. Just goes to show that even Christian hospitals can have their fair share of drama. Pastor Chao is super stressed about a lot of this stuff because it's her job to sort out these issues. A lot of the staff, Christian and non-Christian alike, come to her and ask her to pray for the things they're going through. Everyone finds comfort in her. I would worry that she's taking too much of a burden on her shoulders, but her personality enables it to handle all of it well. She told me, "Yeah, I worry. But I also know that God can fix whatever we screw up. All I can do is pray for wisdom and guidance and pray that God's will be done in this hospital." Then she takes me to get shaved ice. haha. I think I can learn a lot from her about giving my concerns over to God. God is Great. Through Him, I can do all things.

OOh, there was an earthquake today! When things first started shaking (we were on the third floor), I was like "earthquake?" I anticipated the Baltimore put-down, "This is the East Coast. There are NO earthquakes." But I was right. It made me homesick. haha. It wasn't very big but it lasted for a while. Apparently, one of Pastor Chao's coworkers was at the epicenter of a rather serious earthquake in Taiwan 20 years ago. Whenever she feels an earthquake now, she freaks out and tries to look for the nearest exit. When Pastor Chao told me, she gave a wistful sigh, "Man, I wish we were there to see her reaction to this one." hahahahaahaha.

haha. OK, off to read Shortpacked! :D