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You are sitting on the floor next to bed 6 in the Emergency Room. Your roommate is in the bed next to you, sitting in the closest thing you have ever seen to a true bloodbath. The clots and blood are dried on his face, the bib under his chin - his fingers too. There are two doctors at his bedside, one the ER chief, the other the ENT on Emergency duty. Discharge is near - just a couple of nasal packings away. Your roommate shudders as the first packing goes in - uncomfortable, but needed to ensure that no further complications from the surgery happen. No more 1 pm texts that read ‘I think I need to go go the hospital’ and 1:01 pm texts that read ‘I’m sorry I bled all over your sink.’ Today has been more fun for other people. The second nasal packing is inserted, and you feel a bit bad for bitching about how cold the floor is.
A few minutes and some medical banter later, you wait for the nurse to come finish the discharge. Chatter of people, various medical alarms, video game sounds… somewhat overwhelm your sense of hearing. An intern is unable to figure out how to shut off a persistent alarm. The phone rings. The persistence falters, and three people ask how it got shut off. A new alarm starts. At least there aren’t multiple crash victims coming in now, like there were two hours ago. Those sounds were much shorter, but much harder to hear.