Green warrior needs food. Badly.

It was halfway through the shift, and I had just a few minutes before switching over to another area of the ED. Things had been completely nuts in the acute-care area; out of 16 beds, 13 of them were people waiting for admission to the hospital. The other day, I'd helped some fresh new 3rd-year med students find the library, and when I said I'd see them sooner or later down in my department, they commented that all their patients came from the ED anyway. Today, this seemed like it might be literally true.

Before I leave an area, I always ask "so, before I go, is there anything I should take care of as a last-minute thing?" This makes me kind of a dork, I know, but it's the kind of thing I'll encourage when I'm giving orders to techs. Because this day was pretty bad, I wound up with two assignments to take care of in one fell swoop: take a patient upstairs to the cardiac short-stay area, and run over to another building to the radiology department, where the ED's "big boy chair" -- the extra-wide wheelchair -- had been somehow left. No sweat. Since I'm going to be running all over hell anyway, I thought, why not make a detour and come back with the chair? All it takes is some forethought and planning, plus some good decision-making along the way. So I brought the patient up, and got her situated in her room...

6th Floor, Green building - elevators
You are standing in the elevator lobby of the Green building. An empty patient cart is with you. The cardiac unit is behind you. To the left and right are parts of the hospital you don't care about right now. The elevator doors are in front of you. The elevator doors open.

> Push cart into elevator

Elevator (6th floor Green)
You are in the elevator. The doors you came through are behind you. There is a second set of doors ahead of you. There is a bank of buttons on the elevator wall. An empty patient cart is with you.

> Push button

You must specify which button you wish to press.

> Push 5R

Elevator (5th floor Red)
The elevator doors ahead of you open.

> Push cart out of elevator

5th floor, Red building - elevators
You are standing in the elevator lobby of the Red building. The elevators are behind you. To your left is a hallway that leads to offices. Ahead is a long hallway. To your right is a row of high windows that look out on the city. An empty patient cart is with you.

> Push cart forward

5th floor, Red building
You are walking down a long hallway. Behind you is the elevator lobby. To the left is another set of elevators. To the right is the Purple building. Ahead there is a set of locked doors. An empty patient cart is with you.

> Walk forward

5th floor, Red building
You are standing at a set of locked doors. Behind you is a long hallway. An empty patient cart is standing in the hallway. There is nothing to the left. To the right, there is a door to the stairs.

> Stairs

Do you want to walk up the stairs, or down the stairs?

> Down

4th floor, Red building
Behind you is a door to the stairs. To your left is a long hallway. To your right is a set of locked doors. There is nothing ahead of you.

> Left

4th floor, Red building
You are walking down a long hallway. Ahead of you is the elevator lobby. To your right is another set of elevators. To your left is the Purple building. Behind you is a set of locked doors.

> Left

4th floor, Purple building
You walk down a long, narrow hallway. At the end, there is a set of locked doors. To your left, there is a bank of elevators. A sleep-deprived resident is shuffling by. He takes no particular notice of your presence.

> Open door

You need an ID badge to open this door.

> Inventory

In your pockets and on your person, you have:

Trauma shears
A DRG PureTone Classic stethoscope with SafeSeal diaphragm and gel-filled earpieces
Two sets of purple non-latex gloves
A cheap ballpoint pen
Your hospital ID badge

> Use badge on door

The ID reader blinks from red to green, and then back to red, rapidly. Your ID is not coded to open this door.

> Resident

You look blankly at the resident, and before you can speak he looks at you through half-lidded eyes and says, "it's locked. You have to go around."

> Slap resident

You can't do that here.

> Kick resident

You can't do that here.

> Defenestrate resident

You can't do that here. Also, there are no windows nearby.

> Left

4th floor, Purple building (elevators)
You are facing a bank of elevators. To your left and a little behind you is a set of locked doors. There is nothing behind you. To your right is another set of doors.

> Right

4th floor, Purple building (Radiology doors)
You are facing a set of doors that lead to the main Radiology area for the hospital. At this hour, the department appears to be deserted. You can see the wheelchair through the glass portion of the door.

> Open doors

You need an ID badge to open this door.

> Use badge on doors

The ID reader blinks from red to green, and the doors open.

> Forward

4th floor, Purple building (Radiology)
You are in the main Radiology area for the hospital. At this hour, the department appears to be deserted. A large wheelchair is here.

> Take chair

You get behind the chair and wheel it in front of you.

> Thank Jeebus it's about damn time

You can't do that here.



(Yes, my dear sister in KC, that title is a shout-out to you.)