My Friend Joyce

Oh my good gracious. You have to meet Joyce. The heavyset, slow moving, no-nonsense midwife who frowns at me in confusion one minute and laughs at me the next. She's a regular fixture in the ward and an excellent, intuitive caregiver. She told me today that she loves working in labor and delivery because the patients are healthy. She doesn't like touching sick people. Okay, good to know. But Joyce, do you realize what you are touching in labor and delivery?! Today I told her she should write a book telling all of her stories from her years and years of delivering babies. She looked excited and acted like she just might do it!

For your reading pleasure, here's a couple of her gems...

When Joyce was a nursing student and rotating through surgical, she was required to scrub up and work alongside a surgeon in the operating theater. It was her first day and she was nervous. If you have ever been a student in the OR, you know that it is extremely nerve-wracking. When I was in school, my instructor told me that if I passed out, I must not pass out onto a sterile field. At the time I thought, "Great. Thanks for that. Like I'm going to be able to control my limp, unconscious body as it's falling to the floor!" Thankfully, that never happened. Anyhoo, back to Joyce...

She stood gowned and gloved, waiting for instructions. The doctor made his first cut, straight down the center of the abdomen. Joyce looked at all the fat tissue protruding from the incision and the oozing blood and she started to see red. She glanced over at the tools and back at the incision again. Now things were looking fuzzy. She reached up and rubbed her eyes with her sterile gloves. And then her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out cold! A member of the OR staff grabbed her by the collar and pulled her out of the theater, which I'm sure was no easy task! They checked her vitals, which were stable, but she still hadn't woken up. They decided to let her sleep. When she came to, she wasn't wearing her pull-over OR gown anymore! Joyce was practically crying with laughter as she told us how confused she was and wondering how she came to be in another room and wearing less clothing at that! It was delightful to listen as she recalled each thought. 

"How come I'm here and where are my clothes?! Oh my. It must have been difficult to undress me while I was unconscious!" 

When Joyce walked back into the theater, the staff called out, "Good Morning!" The operation was finished and the incision was completely stitched up. She had slept through the entire thing! Later, her instructor told her that that was the end of her time in surgery. She didn't go back and was excused from any further work there. Much to her relief, I'm sure!  

On another day, much later after her adventure in surgery, Joyce was working in the labor ward and waiting for a mama to deliver. She had been waiting a long time and the mother was having a difficult time pushing out a large baby. All of a sudden, there was a huge earthquake and the entire hospital shook. The mama, so frightened by the shaking, pushed her baby out within a matter of seconds! The baby, whose weight was close to nine pounds, was aptly named "Guria", the word for "shaking" in the local language. Poor kid...

As is tradition when telling a story here, the storyteller repeats the best parts of the tale over and over. So we sat and listened and laughed and laughed and laughed as the most funny and startling details were recalled again and again. Laughter is the universal language and even if we are speaking two different languages (or speaking the same language, one of us not so clearly - *ahem*), laughter and smiling is understood by all and accepted by all. It's a rich blessing on the days when I feel like so much has been lost in translation. 

So... Watch for a new book about the adventures of midwifery, written by a plucky midwife in an extremely obscure hospital. It's sure to be a best seller!