My horrific clinic life as a student nurse

After cleaning the restrooms, the next job among the endless daily routine was cleaning the patients’ rooms.

Cleaning one after another after another.

While I was sweeping one of the rooms, one of the patients, who seemed to be in her late 70’s, offered me a Japanese snack called “Manju.”

“Manju” is a traditional Japanese snack introduced to Japan in 1338~1342 from China. Basically, some azuki (small, reddish, brown beans boiled and kneaded with some added sugar) is wrapped in a flour crust.

The elderly female patient said, “You are new here, it seems. You must be hungry. I know this clinic doesn’t feed you enough. So here. Here I have some manjus so why don’t you eat one right here, right now. I won’t tell anyone about it.”

I answered her, “No, thank you.”

She asked me again. “Aren’t you hungry? You don’t have to hesitate. Here, go ahead and eat it in this room.”

She stretched out her arm and tried to give me the manju.

I said to her, “Thank you, but I just ate breakfast so I’m not hungry. You enjoy it later, please.”

She said, “Well, well, what a clean mouth you have!” and smiled at me. (In Japan, this was a compliment since it shows that you do not eat between meals and are well-mannered.)

I thought, “Actually, it’s just that I don’t like azuki, especially manju. But please do not talk to me because I am too busy to talk with you. I have eighteen rooms to clean in twenty minutes.” I took out my irritation and stress on the broom as I continued sweeping many floors.

After finishing the cleaning of patients’ rooms, Senpai-1 came to me and asked me if the old female patient offered me some food or not.

I said, “Yes, she did. Manju.”

Senpai-1 said, “You didn’t receive it, did you!?!”

I said, “No, I didn’t.”

Senpai-1 said, “Wise girl. That lady has often offered food like that and later she tells the Okusama about it. Never receive anything from her. Do you understand?”

I said, “I got it.” But I thought again in my mind, “Telling me such important things earlier would be a big help for me, though.”

Senpai-1 told me that now we would have to go back downstairs and help the doctor in his office.

Help the doctor? On my very first day? How? My head was spinning, like a merry-go-round with too much heavy oil and grease.

To be continued…

My horrific clinic life as a student nurse

I watched as my hands swelled due to the hot water. They hurt. They hurt like thousands of needles were being stabbed into my hands. Tears came up and filled my eyes.

Unluckly Okusama (the doctor’s wife) came into the kitchen and saw that my eyes were full of tears.

She said, “Oh, my! You are not crying, are you? You don’t have time to cry because you have to remember everything that you need to finish until tomorrow. I have to let you attend the nursing school from tomorrow and you won’t be back until late afternoon. Do you understand what that means? It means that I lose money because I have to pay you while you are gone and are not working here. I’m being ripped off here!  I’m the one who wants to cry. Look, if you have free time to cry, then go and clean the restrooms!”

“Restrooms?” I asked.

“Oh, no! You don’t know where they are?” Then she looked at Senpai-1 with a sever expression on her face. “You! You didn’t even tell her where the restrooms are? What have you been doing all day? Dawdler!”

I thought, “All day? It’s not even nine o’clock in the morning yet. We’ve been working like hell cleaning the office, cooking, delivering the patients’ breakfast and eating what little food we get.” Of course I didn’t speak this out loud without knowing what the consequences may bring.

Senpai-1apologized to the Okusama and took me to the restrooms.

There were two restrooms on the second floor where all the patients were staying.

The floor of the restrooms was covered with tiles and I had to wear Geta, the Japanese old style wooden sandals. I don’t know if you have ever tried wearing those wooden sandles on a tiled floor, but I’m sure some people must have died trying. They slip and slide!

I was told how to clean the restrooms. First, fill a bucket with water and pour it across the floor. Then use some cleaning soap and scrub every centimeter. Then scrub the toilet bowls with soap and last I had to mop the floor.

The bucket of water was really heavy for me, and with those wooden sandals, I slept and fell down on the hard tile. The back of my head slammed on the floor and the bucket of water splashed me from head to toe. Oh, did it hurt! My head, my back and my heart felt pain, and I cried again.

But there was not much time for me to cry because I had to finish cleaning those restrooms. “I have to do it,” I thought to myself. “I have to do it.” I could barely see the floor through my tears.

To be continued…

My horrific clinic life as a student nurse

I sat down at the table and looked to see what was placed there.

A bowl of rice, miso soup, and natto. And one more thing….a bottle of umeboshi.

The other senpais were already eating and one of them told me not to touch the bottle of umeboshi because it belonged to the head nurse.

I the asked her if I could have another bowl of rice, but she said, ”No, you can’t. Because we are eating whatever is left from thepatients’ breakfast.”

“What?” I thought.

We have 6 people here and this is it?

Even though the amount of food was so little, it took more time for me to eat it than any of the other nurses. But I didn’t think it was more than 10 minutes.

“Are you going to sit there all day long!?!” the kitchen witch yelled at me.

I said sorry and stood up immediately.

Senpai-1 told me to come with her to gather up the patients’ trays to wash.

She said, ”I will take the rooms on the right side of the hall so you take the left side, OK?”

She also told me to collect them within 15 minutes.

I knocked on the first door and looked inside.

An old man was the patient of the room and he was still eating.

I decided to skip that room and tried to go to the next door, but Senpai-1 saw me without the tray so she told me to get it no matter what.

I timidly went back into the room and asked the old man if it was OK for me to take the tray with whatever was left on it.

The old man became very grumpy and said, ”Can’t you see I’m still eating?”

I said, ”Yes, I can, but I have to collect the tray so that we can wash them.”

The old man said, ”I’m still EATING!”

I said,”Yes, but…”

“You guys always make me eat in a hurry. Are you going to let me eat breakfast or not?”

I thought he was totally right and that he had every right to eat at his own pace. But when I thought about the consequences and the unjust punishment I would receive, I felt I had to ask him again.

“Would you terribly mind possibly hurrying up a little bit and finish eating?”

He threw his chopsticks on the tray loudly and then threw his words towards me.

“I lost my appetite! Go ahead and put the tray away and get outta here!”

I apologized to him, took the tray and left the room quickly. But I couldn’t understand why I had to say sorry so many times. I felt that I was in a no-win situation.

Gathering the dishes was now over. It was hard enough for me to do that job, but a harder job was waiting for me.

Senpai-1 was already washing the dishes, and placing them in very, very hot water to sanitize them.

She used her bare hands and told me to try it. I didn’t think I could do it, but again I really had no choice so I tried it.

“Ouch! Hot!” I screamed.

Senpai-1 taught me to use another bowl to let the other bowl float on the hot water so that I wouldn’t have to soak my hand in the hot water.

But the dishes themselves were really hot and it was impossible to grab them.

Senpai-1 said, ”You’ll get used to it. Well, you have to get used to it anyway. All right?”

I already wanted to pack up everything and go home from the very first morning of the very first day of my work life.

To be continued…

My horrific clinic life as a student nurse

Ziririririririiiiiiiin!

“What is that!?!” I wondered.

I thought I had closed my eyes only one second before so it could not be my alarm clock. Life could not be that cruel, but…it was my co-worker’s alarm clock ringing, and it was 5:40 AM.

She told me to get up immediately and change out of my pajamas into my uniform because we had to be in the doctor’s office room and finish cleaning it by 6:00 AM.

She would explain later that she always set her alarm to 5:40 so that she could have 5 minutes to slowly wiggle out of her futon.

My body was moving, but my brain was still asleep and didn’t want to follow my commands.

But whether I liked it or not, what I had to do was I had to do so I forced myself to move.

My co-worker, I, and two other nurses were there to clean the office. The two other nurses could wake up at a later time because they had seniority over us.

I was told to sweep the floor and my co-worker (I will call her Senpai-1) kept telling me to move faster.

It became 6 o’clock and Senpai-1 said, “It was ok that you couldn’t finish doing everything today, but from tomorrow you have to do without my help. Do you understand?” I wasn’t sure if I could or not, but it seemed like my only answer had to be “Yes,” so I said, “Yes.” Then Senpai-1 told me to go upstairs to help the cook who prepares the meals for the people who were staying in the clinic. She also told me to run quickly to go upstairs or a dog would come and bite me.

“A dog?” I thought.

She explained, while we were running, that the doctor’s wife (who I thought a nice person on my first day) would release her pet dog (I think it was a Spitz) when she heard the sound of our footsteps. And the dog would bite us if we didn’t get to the top of the stairs in time. I was already afraid of dogs since the time I was a little child and now I was really terrified.

We ran. I could hear the door open behind my back. I could hear the noise of the dog’s nails scratching the floor at it picked up speed. I could hear it was approaching me fast.

I tried to run harder as if I was a Concorde attempting to reach mach speed, but of course it was just my imagination. I was born to walk, not run.

“I’m going to get bitten!”

For the moment Senpai-1 pulled my hand and dragged me up to the second floor and I think I skipped two steps of the stairs. I barely could avoid the dog’s bite. Glancing back, it was so ready to bite me with its teeth bared.

I needed a few minutes to calm down, but I suddenly heard a scary voice, as scary as the dog’s. It was the cook. The master of the kitchen.

She was one hell of an old, mean woman who seemed like a little over 60 years old. I am completely positive that no witch could ever be crueler than she was. One good thing is I don’t remember her name anymore, so I don’t have to think about her at all.

This mean master of the kitchen said, “Cut these green onions!” I looked at the table where the green onions were lying and there were at least three bunches of green onions there. One bunch had about 20-30 green onions so there were about 90-100 green onions that I would have to cut.

Even though these were green onions, they were type that if you cut so many, you are guaranteed to have tears in your eyes. So I had them in my eyes, too. Then the mean witch…I mean, the cook started to laugh at me so sarcastically and said, “Are you crying? What are you so sad about? It is only your first work day and you should keep your tears for later!”

I got angry and said, “It was just from the green onions, ma’am.” She didn’t like that. She didn’t like me talking back at her at all. She said, “Well, at least you know how to use a knife so how about this then?” She gave me a vegetable grater to grate a whole Japanese radish. Have you ever seen a Japanese radish? They are long, and this one was about the length of my knee from my ankle. Yes, that’s right. A log. She told me to grate the whole radish by hand.

“We have 18 patients to feed! Hurry up!” she yelled at me. I started by peeling the radish’s skin and then cutting it into thirds. Grate, grate, grate. It seemed like it continued forever and I felt my right arm go numb.

I was almost done grating when, suddenly, I felt a pain in my right middle finger. I had grated my finger. The kitchen witch got even more irritated at me and said, “Can’t you finish one thing properly?” She removed the grater and the radish, flung the grater into the kitchen sink, and threw the rest of the radish in the garbage can. “We can’t use this radish anymore! What a waste!” she yelled, and looked at me with furious eyes.

Right at that moment, the doctor’s wife came into the kitchen. I thought, “Thank God! She’s going to save me from this.” But this was only my foolish wishe. The kitchen witch told her what I did, adding some additional comments and events which never occurred, and even said I had constantly talked back to her with a very bad attitude.

The doctor’s wife turned back to me and looked at my face. Her neck somehow was very red.

She started to scold me. That I had bad manners, questioning what kind of parents would raise a girl like me. That I didn’t learn anything at high school and…and… said I was such a damn girl.

And she commanded that I carry the plates with meals to the patients’ rooms. The clock was just turning to 8:00 and reminded me that our breakfast time was from 8:00 AM to 8:10 AM. Which means I couldn’t have breakfast that morning. My very hard, fast, first working morning was without breakfast? I felt so sad.

But Senpai-1 told me that she would take all of the meals to the rooms so that I could have time to eat after the doctor’s wife and the kitchen witch left the kitchen. Tears filled my eyes again.

It was just the beginning of the day, and I was really wondering what would happen after this first day.

Well, compared to the rest of the day, this morning battle was a piece of cake.

To be continued…