I won't say the Q word, but...

I'm on-call again - it's been a glorious 2 weeks since I was last here overnight, which probably explains my relaxed state of mind. I'm trying to air out the dank, moldy, basement on-call priest room - I've got the window and the door wide open on this beautiful, if hot & sticky, afternoon. One of the things I like least about on-call is being inside with recirculated air for 24 hours straight (well, that and the lack of sleep that often comes with it). I try to eat my meals outside on the sliver of grass in the shade - I say "try" because it's often while eating that I get paged. I carry not one, but TWO beepers when I'm on-call: my beeper (so anyone who wants a chaplain can find me) and the code beeper, which automatically beeps whenever there's a "code" (meaning someone's breathing or heart stopped) or a trauma (meaning a serious emergency coming to the ER). I never know what I'll find when I respond to a page - sometimes someone simply wants a bible or got banged up falling off a ladder, and sometimes is about to die or just died. So far today I got paged to see a woman who wanted prayer before an operation and to the bedside of a family whose aged matriarch is in her last hours.

I won't write the Q word here - it's forbidden when on-call and generally in the ER (if you need a hint, it's a 5 letter word that ends in T). I certainly don't count on a calm night, but I am confident and comfortable in my role and have enough experience under my belt (some of it horrific) that I'm pretty calm and expect to stay that way tonight. It also helps that I don't have to work tomorrow! There's little worse than a long day/night on-call followed by a morning of intensive learning and processing with my peers!