Out of the Hospital

l really hate hospitals which is a terrible thing for a nurse's daughter to admit. What kind of place wakes you up at 3 a.m. to give you a shot in your arm for pain? I wasn't in pain, I was sleeping! I didn't get any rest while I was in there, especially at night because our room was near the nurse's station so it got noisy. I thought it was humorous that they had signs posted all over the floor that said "Quiet Zone 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Guess it didn't count for staff. I had a spinal and happy juice instead of general anesthesia. First time for me and I was nervous. I thought that I was going to be awake for the surgery but the happy juice was very happy indeed. I didn't even feel the spinal, so that was nice. When I first got up to the ward I heard them play lullaby over the PA system. The nurse told me that they do that each time a baby is born in the hospital. I thought, "how sweet." Not so sweet that night when six babies were born between midnight and 4 a.m. I woke for each and every one of those lullaby announcements!

I think the worst part of getting any type of adominal surgery is the gas they pump into your abdomin to give them room to work. To put it bluntly, the only way to get rid of it is to fart. And the only way you can pass gas is to get up and walk around the floor. The nurses are fanatics about walking and farting. Every time they came into the room they'd smile sweetly and asked if you walked recently and passed gas. Well, I couldn't pass gas, proably because 1) I'm too English to do such things in public and 2) my roommate was Iranian and had a huge family that was constantly in the room which lead back to problem #1. Thank God my nurses weren't nuns (it was a Catholic hospital) or my svinkter would have been permanently shut! By day two I was in so much pain that they had to give me morphine. Naturally I threw up after that had to be put back on IV and stayed in an extra day. I was never so glad when I finally let go of a long, loud fart that a beer guzzling football fan would be proud of! Good time was had by all.

But all in all, the staff and my doctor were very nice and took good care of me. I've always admired nurses, they take a lot of crap from patients and doctors and are terribly understaffed, but I sure am glad to be home and in my own bed.