A social worker led us out into the lobby area, to where an elderly man was sitting with a radius of empty chairs surrounding him. It didn't take long to figure out why--the man was homeless and he reeked of urine from yards away.
"Bless your hearts, girls! Here you are. These nice girls are going to take care of you!"
F and I looked at one another. We were supposed to help this man to the shower in the back room of the emergency department. He looked to be about 60 or 70 years old, with a head full of graying matted dreads. He wobbled on his cane as we held open doors and inched along next to him. I tried to stay upwind from him.
"Ohh, you ladies so nice!"
Even the security guards gawked as we walked by. Well, first stared, and then quickly turned their heads to gasp audibly for air. You'd think they would be used to it by now. It is a county hospital, after all.
I figured that once we unlocked the shower door, we could sit the man in a chair, and leave him with some new clothes from the clothing closet. Surely he could operate the shower on his own, right? It's just a hand-held shower head, for crying out loud.
I couldn't have been more wrong.
The instant F and I sat him down and piled his belongings in the corner, he mumbled something about needing a cup. I thought he meant a urinal, but he meant exactly that--a cup. For spitting out his chewing tobacco juice.
Between the smell of his body and the smell of his messy brown hacking, there was nothing that I wanted more than to leave that grungy little shower room. I had already been at the hospital for 7 hours by then. I looked at F with eyes that pleaded, "Get me out of here. Now."
But F was calmly sorting through his belongings--Sir, did you want to keep those dirty socks? Let's get him new, clean ones. What about that wad of soiled napkins? Surely we can give him a tissue box. The man just nodded and mumbled incoherently.
I sighed and put on a pair of gloves as "WWJD" flashed in front of my eyes. He obviously couldn't wash himself. So we were going to do it for him.
Ugh. I hate when conviction stabs me in the gut, or makes me wash naked old homeless men. I wasn't about to let F (a tiny Asian girl) do it herself.
The worst part was removing his underwear. And by underwear, I mean the hospital-issued blue scrubs so heavily soiled that they appeared dyed brown. The steamy stench hit me so hard that my eyes actually watered behind my glasses. The dreads in his hair told me that he hadn't seen a shower in months.
F and I murmured soothing words as we undressed the man. Probably more for our sake than for his. And then he was nakedly vulnerable, spotted wrinkles piled in a chair for us to scrub with soapy washcloths.
The second worst part was when he scrubbed his genitals so vigorously that he splashed the dirty wash water all over our clothes. There was nowhere to escape to in that little locked room. At first I was horrified. (And not because I'm prudish. Believe me, working in health care means seeing more genitals than you ever care to.) Then F and I shrugged. At least it didn't get in our mouths.
You know your life is charmed when you don't have to worry about dirty penis wash water getting into your mouth. Cough. Just saying.
An hour and six gray washcloths later, we were drenched from the knee down. We finally wiped the man down with a blanket (ED blankets are so rough, they can easily pass as towels). He started to smell better, and I was no longer dizzy from the stench. We put on his new, clean clothes.
As we walked out of the ED slowly, an EMT said pityingly, "That's the life of a volunteer, eh?"
The security guard said, "Lookin' good! Y'all miracle workers!"
F said, "I'm really glad you came down from OREX. Thanks for having my back."
I said, "Next time M (our male volunteer friend) better be here, because there's no way I'm doing that again."
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