Participants:
| Scene Title | Nurses Do A Crap-Ton More Than Bedpans |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Just a chat at the Suresh Center about Melissa's new career thoughts. |
| Date | July 23, 2010 |
Suresh Center, Brennan's Office
The tag-team standing in the birthing suite are a common sight in the Suresh Center these days — word has gotten out that the place has a negator, along with a midwife and someone to help with pain management. It means that in addition to all of the other things that the Center does, its birthing rooms are beginning to get a word-of-mouth reputation as the place to go for women worried about their abilities who want a natural childbirth.
"One more, Jeanie! Push!" Megan's voice is demanding and cajoling at the same time as she holds the hand of the brunette sitting upright on the birthing chair sweating, bearing down, and baring her teeth.
It's with one last major push and a howl of infant outrage that the baby slips into Brennan's hands and the redhead looks up to Melissa with a grin. Because as much pain as the new mother thinks she's in now, it would be a lot more if the other woman weren't present.
It's another fine day at the Suresh Center.
Megan may be thrilled. Brennan may be too, given that he has kids. But Melissa? She's as far away from the laboring woman as she can possibly get and still steal away pain. Babies. Eeeeek! Unfortunately, it means she also has a good view of the baby being born, and her eyes go wide, just before they slam shut. "Oh god, oh god. I'm never having kids. I'm never having kids," she whispers, repeating the last like a mantra, while trying to get the visual out of her head. It doesn't make her any less pale though, or help with the obvious tension in her body.
Two occasions Brennan's been there. At least one of the situations was just like this. "It is … a… " Brennan eases the baby up and over, placing the infant on the womans chest. "A boy." Things had gotten a little hairy, cord around the babies neck and so the two of them had switched places, Megan coaching and Brennan delivering just in case. But all was fine in the room, negated mother, squalling infant displeased at it's displacement from a comfortable if cramped womb.
"No fainting on me Pierce." A glance over his shoulder to see how Melissa is faring, gesturing her towards a window and to look outside. "You say that now, I bet Jeanie here said that too at some point. Good job Jeanie" Offering the young mother encouragement even as he sets about to doing the things that come after a delivery. There's cords to cut and all that. Megan will be doing the rest.
Megan chuckles and says, "Hang in there, Melissa!" It's more a tease than anything else. If Melissa faints, Megan's going to dose her with smelling salts. Again. She makes quick work of helping Jeanie get cleaned up, leaving Melissa and Brennan to clean up themselves and one of the other nurses to handle bathing and testing the baby and such. It takes her about ten minutes to rejoin the two in Brennan's office, and she's grinning. "Anybody wanna cigar?" She winks at Harve. "Nice job, Doctor."
Eyes open and narrow on Brennan. "I never faint," Melissa half growls, ignoring the fact that she has indeed fainted in the past. "And I don't care what she said. I'm never having kids. I mean it came through…the head…God!" And again her eyes close and she shakes her head. Go figure. Big, bad mistress of pain is terrified of everything to do with babies. So she's all too happy to leave the room and head to Brennan's office.
"No cigar, but I'd happily take a cigarette or nice big shot of tequila." A pause, then she shakes her head. "Any woman who wants to have babies is fucking insane," she mutters.
"No cigar. Thanks" Once he's back in his office, changed into scrubs that are clean and his white coat on. "Generally Pierce, that's how they come out, unless it's a c-section. I don't think you'll ever be an anesthesiologist, but you could probably head on in to nursing and you'd make good money in the ER. Hell, even here. I don't have any tequila sadly."
Brennan takes up his desk, and a pen, starting to write some things into a file. "She should be fine Megan, follow up through you since you're her midwife. I haven't had to deliver a kid since… Well, it's been a while"
"Trauma nursing is a really exciting field. Babies are pretty rare, and you'd actually be way more help in the ER than you might realize," Megan says mildly as she drops into a chair. She grins at Brennan. "You're sure delivering a lot more here at the center lately — or at least assisting." In that he's negating women, and they're getting such a reputation.
Melissa shudders and shakes her head. "I don't mind blood and stuff. But that? Squeezing a baby out of something the size of a walnut? No. Fucking. Way. And some people do that without drugs? God," she shakes her head and looks at the window with a hopeful look. "Brennan? Honey? Buddy? Please let me open one of those windows and smoke. I've never seen a baby born before and it just…Yeah. Babies scare the shit out of me anyway. They're all…tiny and wriggly and breakable," she says, looking pained.
She glances at Megan and shrugs. "I actually do realize. I've helped a number of people with injuries. The flu first, then a fire, explosions…It helps, and, like I said, I don't mind blood, just babies and labor."
"You better smoke that cigarette pretty fast there Pierce" A gesture to his window and the empty bottle of juice offered up as an ashtray. HE can be sympathetic or at least this once he will be with regards to nicotine habits, pen still scratches across paper, taking notations, updating a file.
"Babies scare more people than you think and I'm just sitting in on more. This is the first time you needed me to actually help Megan. I think Michelle set up an appointment with you. Be gentle, she's not having so good go of it this time" A stiff smile, that blossoms wider. "What plans are there for either of you for the rest of the day. I know Melissa's got a few more hours filing paperwork and the like."
Megan's blue eyes pivot around and pin Brennan to his chair, intent suddenly. "What do you mean she's not having a good go?" Her concern, her affection for the French woman, is very evident in both her tone and expression. "As for me, I've got not too much more on my plate today." Jeanie popping up unexpectedly pretty much wiped out the rest of my appointments for the day."
Hands are put together in front of Melissa's chest in a gesture of thanks, before the pain manipulator moves to the window and lights up. That first hit has her sighing blissfully. Then her nose wrinkles. "I swear, I should not have so much paperwork here. I mean, all I normally do is talk to people. And I get enough paperwork at Tartarus."
There's a lengthy pause, then she glances between the two of them. "With my ability, if I were to, hypothetically, wanna help out with it. Medically, I mean. What job would you guys suggest? And please don't suggest anything that would lead to like ten years of school, because no fuckign way."
"As in, she's more tired and all the other perks that come with being pregnant Megan, but she's only just getting into her second trimester so, it should go away soon. SHe'll probably talk about it with you at some point" Brennan dismisses it, it's not for him to talk about with the other woman.
"What job? Utilizing your ability? Well. There's nursing, basic nursing would take you.. what, two years? What else woudl there be…" A glance to Megan.
The odor of Melissa's cigarette makes Megan wrinkle her nose. Not in distaste — no, not that. More like in the way of someone horribly jealous. She's quit. Again. *sigh* She'll have to make do with secondhand nicotine. It's like the tenth time in the past two years it seems like. She nods to the information Brennan offers and her expression eases. Nothing he's telling her is cause for alarm, so she'll simply meet Michelle as soon as the other doctor wishes.
"Depends on what you want to do. If all you want to do is volunteer your time, what you do right now is more than enough. Just let us keep you on call for the cases where pain management is either problematic or just too much damage. If you wanted actual credentials, the shortest method of getting them would be a paramedic's course. I think Abby got her EMT stuff done in less than a year. And the full paramedic course I think takes two years. Licensed Practical Nursing, similar to paramedic stuff, is about two years. Full Registered Nursing, like what I do, is a bachelor's degree, so four years." Megan herself has a master's in a couple of fields as well as certification as a midwife, but then again… she's also a full-fledged combat medic on top of nursing, so….
Melissa nods and smokes as she listens, brow furrowing as she processes all of it. "But don't nurses just like…draw blood and wash bedpans and stuff? I mean, I could see the paramedic thing. People get hurt and doesn't the pain just complicate things between the ambulance arriving at the scene and getting the patient to the hospital?" She nods to Brennan. "Know you mentioned anesthesiologist, but that's like, a doctor doctor, yeah? MD and all that?"
Change bedpans and stuff. That prompts a chuckle from Brennan and a glance to Megan. He'd made a mistake, far back, when he'd first become a resident and made a comment about how the nurses do nothing except just change bedpans and such. "Anesthesiologists are doctors, yes, so there's your many many years of training. Megan can talk to you about the nursing"
Megan, for her part, tries very very hard not to look absolutely affronted. Melissa is not a resident full of her own self-importance, so she does the other woman the courtesy of not verbally tearing six strips off her ass. "No," she replies succinctly. "Changing bedpans and taking blood are not all a nurse does. To keep it short and sweet, a nurse's job is to do essentially everything for a patient short of actual diagnosis." And half the time, they know more than the doctors they work for too. "And the actual job description varies by what kind of nursing you do — my specialty is trauma nursing. I was the head ER nurse at St. Luke's until I took this job." She moves to stand up, simply walking around. "Paramedic training and ER nursing are probably two of the most hands-on with patients who don't stick around."
"Right. So no anesthesiology," Melissa says, nodding to Brennan. She gives Megan a sheepish look. "Sorry. I just…don't know. Only been to a hospital twice, and I wasn't a patient. Was there to talk to a doctor. And I'll keep that in mind. Can't manage a club and volunteer here forever, yanno?"
"Some people make a pretty fine living out of managing clubs and volunteering. I assume, that not everyone who manifests an ability, ever actually enters into a job that can use it. I sure as hell didn't ever become a doctor thinking that years down the road, I would be working in a center that helps evolveds and using my ability to help with labor or to help others train their ability." Done writing whatever it is, he can't help but laugh at the nurse conversation. It went far better than the strip torn off his own ass years back.
The redhead clearly knows what Brennan's laughing at because she sends him a wry smirk when he chuckles. Uh-huh — you know what happens to doctors who think they're better than the nurse on the floor. Awyeah. As to Melissa's situation, Megan shrugs slightly. "If the bar pays the bills and you like it, hey… there's nothing wrong with that. And volunteering is an important thing. Sometimes, especially with something like this place, we rely more on volunteers than we do employees — we can't afford to pay everyone who wants to help, so we're more than grateful for anyone who chooses to do it in their spare time."
Melissa smiles faintly at Brennan. "Yeah, but…most people don't have a house full of people who aren't paying rent. So thinking of other career choices is sort of a must for me. Already having to remodel my basement and attic. I'm just waiting for the time when I'll need to add more rooms onto the house." She smiles a bit more fully at Megan. "I do like it. It's fun. But fun, sadly, isn't everything."
"Then they gotta get jobs. Plain and simple. YOu gotta look out for yourself and the house, so." Brennan lifts his shoulders then drops them. "The way of life. Nothing comes for free, everything has a cost, just a matter of looking for the strings. They don't like it, then.. you bargain with them. They can't get a job, then they clean and take care of the place. Give them employment in your bar"
"That's a good idea, but …. keep a close eye on the news," Megan says. She moves to stand near Melissa — secondhand smoke! She needs it at this moment, glancing between them. "I got an interesting call just before Jeanie came in. The announcement for mandatory registration deadline for everyone, Evo and non alike, is being officially made. It's at the end of August. All newborns and children to be tested for latent SLC genes first thing." She glances between them. "Thought you guys might want to know that our procedures may be changing to accomodate this situation," she says mildly.
"Well, I can't. I mean, they help around the house, sure, but still." Melissa shrugs and looks to Megan, nodding. "Yeah, I know. Pisses me off, but I'm already registered. So it doesn't really worry me too much. Not for myself." She sighs. "Means Kendall needs registered though, or hidden away. That's not gonna be a fun conversation."
He wants to tell Melissa that Kendall should register, that his ability isn't one that will get him dragged to some deep dark hole like Melissa's apparently did. Maybe this was why he and the Ferry just never quite meshed. He believes in the system. But he refrains from saying so.
"It was coming. Praeger said so in April, registration for all, since those with abilities weren't stepping forward to do their civic duty" The file is flipped closed. "I'll have to get Marlena registered, she's the only one who isn't. Another thing for Michelle and I to carry in our wallets"
Megan nods slightly. "I know," she tells Brennan. "Though I still think it's entirely unconstitutional and a breach of patients rights and privacy." That will remain her opinion, though she doesn't fight over it the way some do. She is not one of the more militant types, going out to fight Da Man. "Anyway, I better go check on Jeanie. You two have a good evening, and tell all your ladies that I said hello. I'll be looking forward to seeing Michelle."