The detox board is completely full. Eleven names with red dots right by them. Eleven shattered lives. I guess it is a good and a bad thing. Great, people are getting help! Or SMH, oh, people are getting help. The window in the station is halfway open, or closed depending on how you look at things. Birds are singing a morning tune. A bit of the arctic north breeze carry’s the tune in. Okay, I completely made that up, there is no “arctic north breeze” coming in, however it sounds a lot better than it just “cold,’ outside. In a few minutes people we start lightly tapping at the pill window door as if they’re at their dealers side window, to get their morning meds from the “charge nurse.”
I’m dead tired. Just pulled twelve hours and the Recovery Tech coming in is 8 minutes late. After my shift, a hour drive home I have to look forward to. I try hard to leave my work at work. However the connection with the sick pulls me in each week, like I am the one in detox, again. The days of detox seem like a dream today, or a nightmare rather. The reality of cleaning up, is that your life gets really busy. This is my last night at detox. Next week its back working residential. I switch back and fourth every other week.
There is a person here with a broken hand. Another can draw really good. And there is the two that are back again. There’s the old one. The young one. The pretty one. The ugly one. And the one that we have no idea what they’ve been through the last 7 days. There’s the one that has been asleep my entire shift. And then there’s the one who just got here.
On my way home I cringe at the hour drive. I try to forget the last 72 hours. However I can’t wait until I work again.
JR Valdes
