I lost a friend of 35 years early this morning.
Clark Lowe and I became acquainted when I was in x-ray school... at the time, he was a pharmaceutical salesman who had formerly been a laboratory tech.
He finally got tired of sales and the traveling, and went back to work as a lab tech at the Sante Fe Hospital here in Topeka, and he continued working there after they changed their name to Memorial Hospital; they finally went bankrupt and he came to St. Francis. He'd been working the night shift ever since I transferred to nights.
Clark had suffered some major medical problems recently, but everyone figgered that he'd bounce back... he always did. Not this time, dammit.
Clark had been at home, but he was re-admitted on Tuesday... I hadn't been up to see him since he came back in. They called a code blue while I was eating dinner, and I didn't learn who it was on until I got a page from my buddy Joe. He paged me to a number that Suzanne answered, and she gave me the sad news.
Clark was a helluva guy, and he had many friends at the hospital, and we will all miss him.
It was another busy night, as they all seem to be lately. It was made much worse with the news of Clark's death, of course, but it was nasty in its own right. Plumb wore me out, but I did manage to get much of the paperwork done anyway.
There is a new fileroom supervisor (who I haven't yet met) and he heard that the clerks were sitting around or something, and so he had the chairs removed from the file room. What a twit. Much of their work is done on computers, so they have to stand up to do things that would be much easier sitting down. And this happened yesterday, on... secretaries day.
Another incident last night: I was going somewhere in the back hall when I saw this guy in a leather jacket heading off in a direction that indicated that he was lost. However, he had a holstered gun held behind his back. I took the next hallway left and called security and went about my business.
However, a few minutes later as I was going to get a patient, I ran across the same guy going out the door by the security desk. I waited until he got past the desk, then I caught the security guys eye and indicated that this was the same guy... he now had the holstered pistol held inside of his jacket sleeve. Security watched the guy as he left, noting that he had a child safety seat in his vehicle... they got the tag number, of course.
My main concern was that the guy who shot the kid last night was coming back to finish the job, or that he was planning on kidnapping an infant or child. Maybe I foiled one of those plans... or maybe the guy was just wandering around, lost.
Yeah, right.
At any rate, guys with guns worry me. I believe that security should have done more than just watch the guy leave, although what they would have done is beyond me. But they're supposed to know what they're doing....
Come to think of it, even some of the security guys having guns worries me.
I don't think that I could carry a gun. Even with training, I don't think that I would. Instead, I will avoid locations and situations where people shoot other people. And take my chances everywhere else.
I do believe that people should be allowed to pack, though, with licences. I've heard the slogan, "An armed society is a polite society" and I can see the reasoning behind that. I don't mind the fact that someone would think that I do have the ability to shoot back at them, even if I don't. I think that it would be a great deterrent.
Of course, there will always be people around who would shoot you in the back, anyway.
Fishing... Andy and I were going to go, he was planning on calling in, but he got some guilty feelings since they're so busy, so we'll go next week sometime. And I'm way too tired to go out by myself.
Bedtime here.