Oh, yeah...the secret

I decided not to update until I saw the results myself. This week folks from the BBC showed up to film an episode of While You Were Out at work. Our nursing administrator was at another hospital out of town, and in the meantime the cast and crew came in to transform our surgery waiting room. That meant we had Evan Farmer, Ali Barone, Andrew Dan-Jumbo, and Mark Montano in for the filming. This was the first time they'd done something in a hospital, so it was a whole new ballgame in terms of getting permissions to film, setting up so that they wouldn't interfere with our patient care and we wouldn't interfere with filming. It worked out great, and the whole thing went on fairly invisibly, except for occasional exclamations from co-workers when their dream men went by. :)

For the most part I stayed out of the fuss. One, I haven't really seen the show, so even though I knew the concept, I really didn't know much about the people involved; I tend to watch 'Trading Spaces' or 'Monster House'. Two, I would have had to come back especially for the big reveal yesterday. Three, I'd rather be in the background. I may have walked behind one of the shots at one point while they were filming in the hallway. Others checked out the progress and got their pictures taken with the folks from WYWO. Still, it was fun.

I went into the newly remodeled room today. They've transformed it into a very natural, soothing environment--mural with trees, natural wallpaper, bonsai, eucalyptus light fixtures, and a TV with DVD playing soothing ambient aquarium scenes. I was a little concerned about the eucalyptus at first, since a lot of people are allergic to it (including me) and I couldn't remember if it was cross-reactive with latex allergy (a big problem for us, since we have a lot of patients and staff allergic to latex), but I checked before everything was in place and it doesn't seem to be. Also, it's all enclosed, so I don't think the eucalyptus itself will cause problems. Dwana had problems, but I think that was the varnish they'd used on the table. It's very nifty, and I hope they decide to show it. If so, it should air in about 6-8 weeks, so I'll keep you posted.