Some calls

There are some calls are work that just leave you kind of exhausted. You feel drained after you finish the interpreting and some can be pretty awkward too. I think I have explained before that we service all kinds of calls...911, medical, financial, insurance, technical, utilities, you name it. Now that I am receiving the medical calls everything is much more personal. Before it was just utility bills, bank accounts, auto insurance, things like that...but now is the person who is sick and terminally ill, the mother whose baby has stopped breathing, the old man who needs an MRI to see if he has a tumor, it is on a much more personal level, and the interpreter as a human being can't help but sympathize, at least me.

There are calls that can be very draining...I had one this week. As soon as the nurse got on the line she told me it was going to be a difficult call as we were calling a mom whose almost full term baby had been stillborn. When she told me that, I took a deep breath and asked God to prepare myself for the call. Mom was very upset, and she kind of wanted to tell you every detail. Just by talking about it I think it helped her and it shared a little bit of the burden to me and the nurse, who were listening to mom. At the end of the call I thought mom was very strong, her voice cracked a little bit some times, but she did not break down. I couldn't help but wonder what a difficult situation it was. For mom, for dad, for the whole family.

I've had to call spouses, whose partner has died and give them the facility condolences, and if there is anyway they call help them, any comfort they can give. These calls are very exhausting. I had one a few days ago of a mom calling 911, whose 11 month old baby was having seizures. She was screaming at the top of her lungs..."please, please help me....my baby is not breathing, please, please.......my baby....my baby". Since she was screaming I couldn't hear the dispatchers instructions. Very difficult call, because we as interpreters can't take over the call, we have to follow the instructions, imagine when you are straining to hear the instructions but you can't because of the other persons screams. I had to kind of shout back and tell her that we were not going to be able to help her if she didn't calm down. The first thing you need is the address to be able to dispatch help, but when the person is not listening to you over their own screaming it creates a very tense situation. And you know that help needs to be sent as soon as possible.

There are also calls that are a little bit awkward. This happens specially when is somebody from the opposite sex. We have to interpret calls in 1st person. So it is as if we were the ones talking. I've had two calls like this so far. In which the patients were male and they had problems having an erection. I have to interpret everything like if it is me. Something like "I haven't been able to have intercourse with my wife since the surgery and it has been 3 months that I can't get it up" (or something like that) in my voice. There are times when providers just crack up laughing they can't help it, and then they apologize. But the guys (interpreters) have to do it all the time. Because for some reason men don't go to doctors as much, but women do. And guys have to interpret calls saying things like "well, my last menstrual period was in march and this is my 3rd pregnancy, one of my babies was born vaginally and the other one through a c-section". I am telling you... Doctors and nurses have the time of their lives listening to us interpreters sometimes.

I had a call this week in which a couple was receiving in-vitro fertilization. But they didn't bring the semen sample. So the nurses were both female, I was female...so that man uttered like 3 words during the 20 minute call. The nurses were telling them that they needed the sample, and that timing was everything to fertilize the egg, and that they had a special room for them to go and get the sample. Then the lady said that her husband gets nervous and he can't do anything, if there was something they could give him to help him. So he was going to receive viagra and then they were going to try to get the sample. I thought the call was going to end there, but when the nurses asked them if they had any questions, the lady asked how could they get the sample. I thought..."this is personal". Then the nurses started explaining they could have intercourse but he needed to withdraw before ejaculating and he needed to ejaculate into the cup. Or she could stimulate him manually or orally, but if she did it orally no saliva could get into the sample in the cup, because it could kill the sperms. I could just feel through the line how uncomfortable the gentleman was, so it was a little awkward.

But at the end you feel good, because you were able to help these people bridge a language barrier. Not only for the people who speak spanish but for our clients as well.