The hospital lab isn’t just where they draw your blood – it’s where that blood is sent to undergo a battery of tests. The lab knows intimate details of your health, and it’s in the business not only of testing your blood, but sweat, urine, nose swabs, cheek swabs, tumor samples, and more. It’s the lab that monitors chemotherapy, catches telltale signs in your bloodwork, and runs crucial COVID tests. The lab is faceless to most everyone in the hospital, but it’s silently rooting for you to recover, perhaps more than anyone else. The lab knows your insides like no one else.
In the ICU, nurses spend hours prolonging life after death. They’ve heard it all, from “Jesus ain’t ready for her yet” to patients being brought in as corpses. If you’re on your phone while your loved one is in labor, the nurses take note. They cope with the daily trauma of their jobs through laughter and jokes, and feel the judgment of everyone in the unit when confronted with heart-wrenching decisions from families.
The hospital’s halls have seen patients being wheeled around wearing oxygen masks to spare onlookers, jousting on towel-wrapped crutches, families clamoring to avoid facing the inevitable, and more. All of this, and so much more, happens behind the hospital’s doors every day.
As scary as it may be, sometimes, the hospital is more than just patients – it’s uncertainty, fear, and pain, all escaping the public eye. This is but a mere glimpse of what goes on inside the hospital walls.
