Funny stuff. Some naughty stuff. Of course. I was reminiscing about hospital situations I have been in. At the same time, I was realizing that I have been in hospital a number of times in my life. I suppose the same is true of others? Yeah, I guess so. My first episode, other than the original and long forgotten awakening, was to have my tonsils removed so that I would have fewer infections. In those ancient days, that was a primary reason for tonsillectomy. I suppose (by checking with Dr. Google) that it is still a primary reason. In any event, there I was in the days of an ether drip for anesthetic. I remember a great deal about it. The ether leaves a strange flavour in your mouth and gives you a delightful experience of being ‘away’ for a while. It is not unlike sniffing glue. When I was being returned from my little blue heaven, my first awareness was of sitting on the edge of the bed with a nurse giving me ice cream for my throat scratchiness. My mom and dad wondered if there was a special diet requirement and the doctor assured them that I could have anything I wanted. On the way home, I asked for potato chips and my parents were horrified. Haha.
My more recent hospital visits are less well chronologically remembered but no less amusing. When my gall stones shifted and knocked me off my feet, I rode via ambulance to our local hospital. The ambulance attendants were so good looking and so very friendly. One fellow was a bit touchy feely and very kind, very handsome in his little ambulance outfit. He patted me on the shoulder and was very interested in how I was feeling. I had a nice ride. After arrival at the emergency room, I was placed on a gurney and the fellows were interviewing me for hospital triage. My handsome saviour was ticking off the boxes on a sheet and came to the ‘relationship status’ box. “Are you married?” “Yes.” “Where shall we contact your spouse?” “He is at work, right now…”. My last statement caused the handsome young fella to blanch, visibly. I could almost hear his inner voice saying, “Oh, my God! I touched a homosexual in an intimate sort of way!” Haha. He became distant, a bit detached.
During that same E.R. visit, while I lay on my bed with the privacy curtain drawn and the morphine drip in, a fellow was brought in and placed in the next cubicle. “Ow, ow, wow..” he repeated, over and over ad nauseum. He just got louder and louder, with the nurses in attendance. They pleaded with him, trying to make him understand that his tension in reaction to the pain was causing his pain to be greater. One nurse cautioned that it wasn’t possible to give him anything for relief until they knew what was causing the problem. He settled a bit, then returned to the loud complaining. His spouse was urging him not to upset the other patients, “..please, they are going to take care of you. You are going in immediately for ultra sound testing. Try not to upset the other folks in here, you are really howling!” Within minutes or less, he was whisked away for his test and returned almost as quickly. The doctor marched right in to give the result. “owwwww…ow..wow!” “Please, try to be quiet… you have an aortic aneurism and we will have to do surgery as soon as possible.” The fellow quieted a bit and said, “So, what? I have to come back in a week or something?” The doctor replied, “Oh, no..it has to be done right now. We don’t have a surgery available here, so the ambulance is being readied. You are going to Detroit and will be having surgery in twenty minutes time!” The fellow became extremely quiet, then said, “Oh.” I didn’t hear another sound from him after that.
On the day of my surgery to remove the gall stones, my brother came to assist. It was a day surgery and I was to be released as soon as the anesthetic wore off. Good! While lying in a stupor in recovery, I peacefully checked out my surroundings. I could see I was lying in a row with several other persons. One older fellow next to me on the right, a young and very attractive guy in the bed to my left. The attractive guy was out cold, having probably only recently been wheeled there. I was in a groggy haze and the fellow to my right was a bit better. One nurse came to check on our progress and was quite pleased. “Oh, here you are back again, you two!” She said. The older fellow started chatting with her and asked, “So how long have you been a nurse, forty years or so?” I started to laugh and the nurse came back with, “Okay, I can see that you two are going to be trouble! Here, I thought it was going to be an easy day…”
When my mother in law was descending into dementia, she became quite entertaining. I loved the time I spent caring for her, taking her to doctor appointments, etc. She had many small strokes over a few years time and was being treated at the Transient Ischemic Attack clinic at hospital. TIA was on the left side of the outpatient room and the orthopaedic clinic on the right side. We sat waiting to be seen and she marveled at the folks and their cast arrangements. Each person headed in to orthopaedics with a more and more elaborate device. One woman had an arm fixed at a funny position, almost above her head. She also walked with the aid of a crutch, hobbling all the way. Mum looked at this in amazement and said to me, “She is in BAD shape!”
Ah, the good ol’ days.
Robert On The Air 