foxygen — Roleplayer Guild

TREEWIT PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITAL

TIME }}   8:00 A.M.
Doors don't close in Treewit. At night, you don't get secrets, either; fifteen minute checks from dedicated (or occasionally careless, depending on the shift) techs mean that you either play asleep or you force yourself to sleep. Otherwise, it's marked on your chart. Insomniacs are listed as lacking progress if they don't catch a wink of sleep. There are only two rooms for these fifteen minute checks to take place in, and they are arranged by sex. The left side of the hallway is the XY chromosome side (Sacha, Niki, and Raf), the right is the XX side (Eva, Toya, Ivana, and Josie). Each room has three bunk beds, two writing desks, and shelves mounted on the walls for clothes and personal belongings - that is, the little you're allowed to take in with you. There are three unit bathrooms (male, female, and unisex), with four personal showers and four stalls in each.

The mornings are a little bittersweet, then, when you get to rise out of that plastic-inflated mattress and air pillow. Hygiene is first. Everyone gets their boxes from the sanitary closet - toothbrush, toothpaste, body wash, hair wash, and deodorant are the only things allowed, for now - and if you're really considerate to the other patients, you'll clean yourself up. Otherwise, it's meds time. Not everyone gets medication in the morning, depending on whether they take SSRIs or otherwise, or some simply are not 'severe' enough for constant dosing. Sacha receives 5mg of Selegiline in the mornings and at night - he is one of few with repeated doses throughout the day. Another is Toya, who is required to take 300mg of Lithium at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; she takes 100mg of Effexor with that at breakfast and dinner. The new admission, Ivana, is just starting on 20mg of Fluoxetine in the morning. Josie, another relatively new patient, must have 18mg of Concerta in the morning. Niki, who has just arrived, is receiving a small dose of 25mg of Sertraline each morning. Eva takes 30mg of Restoril at night.

Some are required to have their blood pressure and/or weight monitored. Sacha's, Eva's, Toya's blood pressures are checked every morning, while Niki and Ivana must have their weights measured every morning and night (although they are never told what the number is, of course). Needless to say, the mornings are busy, and all of this is meant to be done with by 8:20 a.m. Patients are then escorted to the cafeteria, and are monitored by at least two staff members to ensure they eat all of their food. There are vegetarian options and the choice to switch out an entree if you are allergic to the initial one, plus any diet changes due to religion, available only if the patient has consulted the unit doctor beforehand. Today, the cafeteria is serving eggs, sausage, fruit, toast, milk, and juice.

RAFAEL ❝RAF❞ VARGAS

LOCATION }}  BOY'S ROOM » UNIT BATHROOM » CAFETERIA
INTERACTING WITH }}  EVERYONE
The morning techs were always the worst. Two women alternated shifts, usually - one was Miss Allen, who was nice and let them sleep in a little if they were really good patients, and the other was Miss Fairchild, whose name contradicted her personality entirely. Her fifteen minute checks up until waking them all up were loud and rambunctious (and the admins wondered why kids were only getting C grades on sleep), then when it really was time to get up, she clapped her hands in the doorway. Rude. Today, Fairchild was in charge, and Raf nearly fell off his bottom bunk in surprise. 

All he could register first was that he was dead tired, having only broken bouts of sleep throughout the night and then a very abrupt awakening. Never one for moping, he quickly swung off the bed and made it up military style (truth be told, Fairchild scared him, so he'd be as good as possible to avoid her wrath). Before running to retrieve his hygiene box, Raf looked around the room, eyes sweeping over Sacha first - quickly, because Raf really didn't understand what his illness was or how it worked, but they slept in the same room and he didn't want his throat slit - and then Niki. Niki was new. Strange kid. As far as Raf knew, he - shit, they - were nice enough and didn't belong here. Maybe in Treewit, sure, but not in the boy's room. They deserved at least a room that didn't force them into gender roles, right? It'd be counterproductive to treatment. Anyway, that was just Raf's grasp on the situation. He really didn't know who Niki was.

After a few moments of remaining idle, he remembered Fairchild's existence and rushed off towards the closet at the end of the unit hall. His box was clearly labelled with his surname, not yet torn and peeled like some older patients, and he booked it to the bathrooms to get the best working sink. Showers were taken at any time between 6 and 8 p.m., so he opted just to brush and deodorize for now... but he didn't look great. Raf leaned in close to the mirror (a drab metal sheet attached to the wall, not glass), and studied himself closely. His medication had his pupils dilated almost constantly, even in the bright hospital-style lighting. Anti-psychotics didn't keep him up at night, thankfully, so his eyebags were even less pronounced than they were prior to hospitalization. That was lucky - some people around here looked like damn zombies. Raf forced his hair back and decided that he'd been looking at his face for so long that it was verging on creepy. 

After his hygiene box was stowed back in the closet, he headed towards the dayroom, eyes on the nurse's station adjacent. Others were receiving their meds in condiment cups, standing on the scale or sitting in a chair with blood pressure wraps on their arms. "Vargas." He jumped up to receive his pills - 3 orange, totalling 225mg of Effexor, and 1 round yellow pill, 100mg of Seroquel. He downed them all in one go with the provided cup of water before quickly shaking his head around, shuddering from the sensation of four pills slipping down his throat. Nasty stuff. Lucky him, he didn't need his blood pressure or weight taken, and it was even 8:20 now.

The route to the cafeteria was straightforward after Fairchild used her keycard to open the first pair of doors. What was more painful was getting everyone in a straight, single-file line; some shuffled or were generally disobedient, most days. In any case, they arrived to the cafeteria within five minutes. 

"Jesus! They're stuffing us," he muttered aloud to nobody in particular, before grabbing one of the trays off their lineup - evidently, he was still not used to the bountiful amounts of food the unit provided. Realising fairly quickly that the server could, in fact, hear him, he looked up and smiled at her. "Hey, thanks." Yikes. Raf hurried towards one of the four circular lunch tables in the room, clearly petrified of confrontation with an evil lunchlady.

He took a moment to stand and watch the others carry their trays out, tentatively placing his own on his chosen table. Usually some would flock to be by themselves at one of the other circles, but... Raf didn't like to allow that. Actually, the size of the unit was the smallest it'd been in a while, why not take advantage of the fact that everyone would fit on one table? Decisively, he waved his hands to the others, gesturing for them to sit with him. He nodded at Ivana and Niki in particular, the resident newcomers. "Guys, guys, c'mere, we gotta get to know the new kids!" All right, so maybe he was a bit too excited to no longer be fresh meat given the arrival of new patients. Prior to these two, all he had was Josie, and even she was admitted around the same time as him.
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