Dignity . . . or the Loss Thereof

Dignity can be a fleeting thing, and being a patient in a hospital is one of the quickest ways it can give you the slip. Unfortunately, I speak from experience.

I arrived at the emergency room with wild, crazy, sweat-drenched (from the severe pain) hair, wearing Joe Boxer “dogs with an attitude” pajama bottoms, and a T-shirt. Normally that would be beyond embarrassing for me, but with the pain of a bowel obstruction, the medical term for your intestines doing a Chubby Checker (you know, The Twist) on you, how I looked was the furthest thing from my mind.

Now, when your intestines do the twist nothing gets past it, solid or otherwise. So, while lying on my bed in the E.R., I felt the urge to release some flatulence. In my morphine state of mind (the pain medication had kicked in by then), I thought this to be a good thing; if I could pass gas, wouldn’t that mean I didn’t have an obstruction and therefore could go home?

To put this as delicately as I can, I forced the issue and, well, got more than I bargained for--I soiled my funky little hospital gown (the design of which has been the source of so many unintentional flashings of people’s derrieres) . . . and my bed.

Well, the nurse came in to wheel me to x-ray for a CAT scan. Red-faced, I sheepishly explained what happened, and he promptly shattered my “anti-bowel obstruction” theory, along with any hopes of going home.

He told me, and I swear there was a little glee in his eye when he said it, that all I’d managed to do was clean out what was in my intestines below the obstruction, which the aforementioned CAT scan later confirmed. This meant that I was going to be, how did the doctor put it? Oh yes, I remember. I was going to be a “guest” of the hospital for a few days.

I must divert from my thesis for just a minute and exclaim, “A GUEST?!” Doesn’t that just sound quaint and homey, like visiting an old friend for a few days? Not! It was more like being a guest of Saddam Hussein and his boys.

And just when did hosts start charging guests for their visits? All I can say is I’m sure glad that when I last visited my close friends in Tennessee they, unlike the hospital, didn’t charge me $15, 000.00 for my three-day stay. But let’s get back to the subject at hand, fleeting dignity.

Finally, the one incident that put the finishing touches on the complete fleeting of my dignity, the granddaddy of all embarrassing incidents that took place during my stay at the hospital, wasn’t losing my I.V. while showering--causing me to bleed like a stuck pig and forcing me to pull the emergency cord in the shower, which brought a very lovely looking nurse (young enough to be my daughter) to rescue me, while, mind you, I was standing in the shower, dripping wet, wearing only the suit I was born in.

It also wasn’t visitors seeing my urinal bottle filled to the rim, hanging in the bathroom. No, it was something much worse than all of these things combined. It was the unintentional (and I blame it on the morphine and those dang hospital gowns) flashing of my “baby maker” at youngest son. Poor kid, no 23-year-old should ever have to experience that--he’s currently in therapy, so hopefully the scarring to his psyche will be minimal.

I have to admit, though, I’m going strictly on youngest son’s word concerning this. I don’t actually remember the incident. You see, besides being a great pain killer another effect that morphine seems to have on the body is it tends to make one’s memory a bit fuzzy; hey, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.