Painting Exam Room #3 - part 3

I wish I had taken a photo of the mural before I put the table back, but it was 7 o'clock at night and I was too tired to even think about it. This exam table happens to be red, so painting the border the same color was a good choice. As you can see, this childlike theme is very much like an 8 or 10 year old's style of art (I hope), so getting straight lines was not what I wanted to do. When I walk by the room now, I often think of it as a larg quilt with soft fabric borders floating against that white, white wall.





Here we have the lady bug in the opposite corner. It's made of plastic and is about 3 inches around, so it is easy to see. Until I painted the tree branches and leaves, she was just hanging out there all by herself. I hope she feels a little more at home now.



As you can see, there is a lot of stuff in this corner of the room. It really does help to have a lady bug in the corner when the doctor is examining your eyes. We have a "paperless" office. Everything goes into the computer instead of paper charts. It's a nice system for us. No one has to pull files and we don't have to worry about storage. Since the office is rather small, it's kind of necessary. Also, pulling up information about a patient is only a click away and is immediately available.
Well, immmediately available as long as the Server is happy. The Server and I are on good terms most days. Most days. Some days she has me going in circles. Like people, some days are better than others, so I greet her in the morning with a smile, a pat on her plastic monitor and hope that is enough to keep her content.



To complete the helpful image trio, I painted a star on the ceiling over the exam table, so when Dr. K is pushing on soft bellies, there is something overhead to see. It's amazing how much it helps to have a known object overhead instead of just ceiling tiles. I've been a patient being wheeled about on a gurney in a hospital a few times, and nothing is as frightening as looking at the world from that most helpless angle. My eyes were always looking for a comforting symbol, something familiar. Well, yes, what I was looking for was my husband, but he couldn't always go into the O.R. with me. Sigh.



In order to protect my work from sticky hands and kicking feet, we had a large piece of Plexiglas installed over the lower portion of the wall. It extends below the table pad and runs all the way across the painting, so keeping it clean will be easy. There is another piece on the chair wall to protect the flowers. People tend to lean back and rest their head against the wall while sitting down, so that plastic is as high as the highest flower petal.

So far, everybody who has seen this little multicolored zebra has loved his arrival. I do, too.