The Road From Here

This chapter was written on Thursday, May 11, 2006

Chapter Eight: The Aroostook Medical Center

On November 25, 2005, I felt like a complete douchebag. I was in my room after school, getting ready to walk up to the nursing home to have my first training session on how to feed an old people. Everybody at school was under the impression that I was actually going to be wiping their asses, but I didn't apply for a job ass-wiping.

At 3:30 PM, I arrived at the Aroostook Health Center Nursing Home. Jared was already there, and he asked me if I knew where the Grant Room Conference Center was, where the meeting was going to be held. I didn't, so he showed me where it was, and we both went in and sat down.

There were six of us in the room altogether. Jared Tardy, Tiffany Ford, Lacey Wardwell, Yo-yo Smith, myself, and our instructor from the hospital in Presque Isle, Tonya Pinette. We were waiting for the last person to arrive, so we decided to just start and we would fill him in when he got there. The last person was Tom Tweedie.

He showed up ten minutes late, a habit that would plague him until he was fired in April of 2006.

Tonya gave us each a course guide. They were a barf-orange and they said What is the Role of a Feeding Assistant on the covers. I flipped through the pages. I thought to myself this crap looks really boring. I looked up. Michelle Tweedie wasn't there. I guess she dropped out of the program.

I got a yellow folder from Tonya to put the papers that we received in. We got all kinds of papers that we had to sign. Papers like The Protection of Resident's Dignity oath, which stated that I wasn't allowed to talk about the resident's at the home to any other person outside the licensed staff of The Aroostook Medical Center. Crap like that. I was there at the Grant Room from 3:30 PM that day until 6:30 PM.

When class was finally over, Tiffany, Lacey, and Tonya got in their cars and left. Jared's mom picked him up. Tom and I were the only one's still in the Grant Room. Now just to clear things up, the Grant Room is an entirely separate building from the rest of the nursing home, so Tom and I were the only one's in that building.

We talked about whatever was on our minds for about ten minutes. He was in my English class at school, so I knew him a little bit. I had met his brother Andrew back in eighth grade, but we weren't friends. Tom was more mature than his younger brother.

His ride showed up, and he said he'd talk to me later. I saw him off and started walking home. I had never arranged for a ride in the first place, I was just going to keep everybody company until their parent's came to get them.

I got home that night and figured that, against my former track of thinking, I kind of liked what I was getting myself into. It wasn't the job that was interesting me as much as it was the fact that I would be doing something after school to keep my mind of the pain of my everyday life. Also, I was interested in the fact that I was on the Eastern Maine Health Care's multi-million dollar payroll!

We had classes about twice a week for a couple of weeks, and one day on Saturday for seven hours. That was the day that I was trained in CPR/HeartSaverAED. One of the classes, I think the third one I attended, we had to practice feeding each other to simulate feeding an old person with disabilities. I can say first hand, there is no other experience in the world than having your ears plugged, a blindfold over your eyes, getting fed chocolate pudding at the prompt of your opened mouth. Nothing like it. On the other hand, it was akward feeding Yo-yo buttered bread while she pretended to be paralyzed!

I finished my last class on December 13, 2005. After that, all's I had to do was go to orientation at the main hospital in Presque Isle, and I would be certified to work.

I think orientation was on January 24 and 25, 2006. It was within a week of that, at least. I went there early in the morning, and I was there for about 4 hours both days, for a total of 8 hours of listening to a bunch of old nurses and doctors bitching about what they do for work. That was one of, if not the most boring thing I've ever had to listen to in my entire life.

The second day of orientation, I had my picture taken for my photo ID. It looks the ID that any of the nurses or doctors would be wearing at TAMC. It was set up like this.

The Aroostook Medical Center

[Picture Here] Rob

Rob Bridges

Feeding Assistant

Nursing Services

The Aroostook Medical Center

In my picture, I had on my regular casual clothes, which is part of what made Tiffany Ford's mother Kim not like me. My God, just hearing that name makes me cringe. Shit, I think I've been listening to too much Eminem lately.

The first day I worked was on Wednesday, January 4, 2006. Unfortunately, I had to work with Tiffany Ford. I'm not trying to be mean, but she is two things. One, a braniac. She thinks she knows everything. It is so f***ing annoying when you're trying to do your job, and she's trying to control you. I can't stand her, saying it flatly. The second, she is a b****. She bitches about everything, not to your face, but she will go a blab everything to her mother Kim. I can't stand Tiffany or her mom, period.

Eagle Friday was every other Friday starting on January 6, 2006. When I went to the bank that afternoon on the 6th, I had well over $200.00 in the bank, and that was just for going to the orientation, and the sign-on bonus. My tax option was 0, so when I filed for my tax refund, I would get more money in a lump sum.

I generally worked about three or four days a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. I tried to work as much as I could, most times ending up with Tom. My hours were 4:30PM-8:30PM weekdays, and 9:30AM-2:30PM; 4:30PM-8:30PM weekends. In January alone, I worked thirteen out of thirty-one days.

On January 17, 2006, I was suspended for putting a threat on somebody's life.

Okay that's dramatized a little bit, but this is what happened. I was at my locker in the sophomore wing. Suddenly, and without warning, I was slammed up against the lockers. Somebody had shouldered me, hard. I turned around, and on instinct, grabbed the attacker and made a threat on his life.

I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and whipped him around sideways, slamming him into the door to a classroom, which shook the wall. "If you f***ing do that again, I'm going to f***ing shoot you to death, and that's a m*****f***ing promise! Don't ever f***ing touch me again!" Then, after the heat of the moment wore off, I looked up and saw who had shouldered me.

Levi Corey. I was going to get suspended because of Levi Corey? How embarrasing, let me tell you. Mr. Gray was coming out of his classroom when it happened. I didn't know him very well at the time, or else he probably would have let it go, like he would had it happened today. But even with Gray out of the picture, guess who's door had slammed in the process of me smashing Levi against it?

Natasha Brewer. S**t. I was screwed. She was coming out to see what had happened, and I had slammed the door in her face with Levi's body. She came out a second later.

"Go to 'da office! Let's go!" Gray yelled. "I will go to the f***ing office!" I yelled back. I don't let teachers yell at me without me yelling back. Second rule of high school. The first rule of high school is always slam your locker, but Levi had taken it way too far out of context that day.

I went into Mr. Grass's office to wait while Gray and Brewer wrote me up. Finally Grass came in. I decided not to give him a hard time. I don't know why I didn't give him a hard time, but I guess it was because I knew I was already in legal trouble with the State Police for threatening a life on school property. Mr. Grass called my gram and told her what happened, and also how I was keeping it cool in his office. He didn't even seem mad, but more reluctant that he had to suspend me. He sent me home for three days.

While I was on my "vacation", my dad made a deal with me. "Hi Rob, how's your day going? SIT DOWN!" I sat down, interested in what he had to say, since he was grinning ear to ear. I'll give you a heads up, I wasn't smiling when he was done talking.

"Rob, from now on, every day that you're suspended, you're going to pay me $25.00 per day, plus $10.00 for the aggravation. You got that? If you get suspended for three days again, you're going to owe me $105.00. Comprendé hombré?"

That is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard in my life. I thought it was bad enough that I had to pay my gram $1 every time I got a ride within Mars Hill, like a ride home from school. If I wanted to go to Presque Isle, I had to pay her $5. What ever happened to all the times she said "I'M NOT RUNNING A DAMN TAXI SERVICE FOR YOU!!!!!" Well, I finally went back to school on Friday, January 20, 2006, and after that, things started to go back to normal. Or so I thought.

My older brother Mark turned 18 on February 4, 2006. Around this time, he started to skip school a lot. I had asked him why he wasn't going to school, but he never gave me a straight reason for his actions.

"Mark, why the hell do you skip school, dude? You've got better grades than me, and I still go!" I would say to him. "Oh, no reason. I'm just 'taking it easy'." Whatever. I learned not to even bother asking him anymore, since he never actually told me why. To this day, I still don't know why.

The rest of February went by pretty fast. I worked a lot, mostly with Tom, and spent a lot of time working on my music. On Valentines Day, Latisha was the only person in the entire school that said it to me. I don't know if she was just saying it to be nice or what, but that's what it sounded like.

"Happy Valentines Day, Rob!" she yelled, practically in my face, when I walked past her in the hall.

On February 21, 2006, my Dad turned 41, and my younger brother Joe turned 15. They have the same birthday, except my Dad's birthday is in 1965, and Joe's is in 1991. On February 23, 2006, I honestly thought my gram was going to die. I was woken up at around 6:00AM. My grandpa had been scheduled for Day Surgery at TAMC early that morning, and my gram came upstairs to tell me that she was taking him to Presque Isle.

Twenty minutes later, after I had fallen back asleep, my gram came back in. She said that she would be at the hospital longer than she expected because she wasn't feeling good. This was around 6:50 AM. I was asleep within minutes because I was so tired. A few minutes later, my grandfather yelled up the stairs for me to come down.

My grandmother was laying on the couch spacing out, screaming. At first, I thought she was having a heart attack. When I walked in the room, I sat down on the edge of the couch and held my gram's hand. I seriously thought she was going to die, but my mind was blank, as well as my expression. My grandfather was on the phone with the paramedics right beside me.

My gram was screaming things like "This has never happened to me before!", and "I don't know what's happening to me! WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME?"

The paramedics arrived shortly after 7:00 PM that morning. Our Oldsmobile was running in the driveway, but my gram had accidentally locked the keys in the car when she ran into the house, screaming. The paramedics asked my gram if her heart was fluttering, if she felt like she was falling, and if she was having palpitations. My gram, on the other hand, was hysterical, barely keeping still as they strapped her onto and stretcher and wheeled her out to the ambulance in my driveway.

My grandfather was going to go with them, but they said it would be better if he didn't. He came back into the house, breathing a prayer under his breath. He must have asked God to keep him calm, because he sure seemed it.

I called AAA at 7:15 AM to send a truck out to unlock our car. They forwarded the call to Brewer's Garage in downtown Mars Hill, and they said they would be there in ten minutes. It was a lot longer than ten minutes before they got there.

My grandpa was still scheduled to have his surgery at 8:30 AM, and his car was locked in the driveway. It was also winter time, and the sun wasn't up yet. My grandfather's right eye is very bad in terms of light, so he can't see well enough to drive when it's dark. When Brewer's finally showed up, they unlocked our car, and my grandfather had to leave. The only problem he faced now, was the fact that the only way he was going to get to the hospital in time for his surgery was if I drove him.

I got dressed and we went out to the car. It was snowing lightly that day, and my grandpa said one thing before we left that morning.

"Rob, don't kill us." We left around 7:45 AM and got to TAMC in Presque Isle at about 8:15 AM. I had to drive slower than I normally would because the roads were slippery. I dropped my grandpa off at the Day Surgery entrance next to the Emergency Department, and went over to State Street to get my parents.

My Dad and his wife, Wanda Smith Bridges, moved out of our house at 70 Benjamin Street in October. They had gotten married in mid-August, and had finally found an apartment for themselves by October. I pulled up out front of the building and parked it. I went upstairs and knocked on their door. They were already at the door, waiting to come with me to the hospital. Grandpa must have called them when I was getting dressed.

They came out to the car, and I drove us back to the hospital. We went inside to the Emergency Department.

"Arlene Fox?" I said to the lady at the desk. "Trauma Room 6." she pointed down the hall. My dad, my step-mom, and I walked down the hall and into the same room I had been checked into when I was diagnosed with panic attacks back in August. My gram was sitting on the bed.

"How are you, gram?" I asked her. She looked fine. Just then, she started to cry. "You guys didn't have to come all the way here to see me." she choked out, tears running from her eyes. My dad sat down on the bed and whispered something in her ear.

The doctor came in a few minutes later. "Well, Arlene, we checked your bloodwork down in the lab, and everything looks fine on the EKG. Let's just take a look at this chest x-ray..." He slipped the dark plastic sheet into the clips on the flourescent screen and flipped the switch. The light shone through the film.

"Well, everything looks fine." the doctor said. "It look's to me like you just had a panic attack, and you hadn't realized what was happening. That must have made you nervous and anxious, which is why you panicked." A relieved look came over my dad's face, as well as my step-mom's. My face turned stone cold.

Panic attacks: the closest non-fatal brush with death a human being can experience without warning or provocation. My sweet, caring grandmother was now another victim to it's harassment charade that would interrupt her life without a second's notice. I know panic attacks all too well, these days. They're not fun, trust me.

I was glad she was okay, though, that's all I can say. At least it wasn't a heart attack, like I had feared. My gram brought my parents back to their apartment after she changed out of her hospital gown, and brought her and I home.

The rest of the day went okay. I stayed home from school, just in case she had another panic attack, but she was fine. To this day, she hasn't had a panic attack since that freaky February day.