Things heard and seen in a hospital…
By Mary Hannington
Hospitals can be the source of a million tales and a doctor, who has been in the family for a long time, has fond memories of working the emergency shift in Detroit. She once removed, among other things too numerous to mention, a Prell bottle with a golf ball glued to it from up someone’s ass.
A nine for creativity...
Then there was the woman, who after an emergency C-section decided to name her baby Placenta because she thought it was a beautiful name.
Multiple tries from multiple Docs could not persuade her otherwise… somewhere in the world there is a woman named Placenta, but perhaps she has changed it by now.
These days everything in a hospital has a beeping alarm and I mean EVERYTHING. The bed, the chair… the last time I was here I sat in a chair and then couldn’t get out of it without causing an ear piercing bleep. Praise Buddha the nurse tech finally came in and allowed my escape from the chair of evil. The heart monitor beeps when it runs out of paper, or toner, or if one of the leads comes loose, any malfunction at all… BEEP BEEP. I watched three people go over the thing trying to figure out exactly which malfunction it is.
Desperate to squelsh the beep...
Ms. 91’s hands are always cold and this makes the blood oxygen reader beep, but these are just tiny little beeps – Wes the hot young tech is clearly frustrated - I offer to bring in some gloves.
I ask him if he gets used to the beeps.
“Arrgh!” he says “I hear them when I go home.”
The donging nurse calls are the worst he hears those in his sleep.
Then there is that damn IV drip beep, a loud two-beep deal that just drives you totally nuts. I was there for only four hours and I was ready to crawl into a corner and moan, "Make it stop... PLEASE make it stop." I watched Laurie the head nurse do a U-turn and come back into the room. Ms. 91 says defensively “I didn’t DO anything!”
Somewhere along the line the beeps have become accusatory.
Ms. 91 had been diligently holding her arm out straight because to bend it means beeps.
I tell the Doc she hates it when I have to change her or help her on the toilet. She’ll slap my hand away and say “Let me do it!” when she knows she needs help and I have to pretend like I'm not helping.
But when Wes comes in and wants to hold her up and yank down her drawers she’s perfectly happy about it.
He says “You haven’t seen Wes!” and I say, “Oh yes I have.”
With her it’s always open mike night and she has them rolling in the hospital corridors.
The doc called the other night and said, “I just walked into your mom’s room. She’s sitting on the pot talking on the phone to her sister and they’re trying to monitor her heart and it’s racing… Oh now, she’s smiling and waving at me.”
He says he’s not sure if the racing is because Wes just left and it’s like a party in her room or it’s A -Fib.
Today he asks her if she’s happy (He knows her “Why should I live any longer? I’m no good to anybody.” speech.) She says, “Okay I’ll live if I can walk.” He says, "Okay you can be sad until we get you walking."
He gets it.
Sometimes it sucks to be old, but we are NOT adding happy pills to the mix.
Doc looks in her the eyes and says "Okay beautiful."
91 just says, "Och!" and then shoves him for good measure.
She has now settled into a rehab center for a few weeks, one I pass on my morning walk everyday, a place where the Y ladies will visit and Judy will visit and her daughter will most certainly swing by.
Her doctors will visit too not just because they’re doctors, but because they love Ms. 91 too.
