By the time I gave birth to Arabella I was looking at a three-day stay in the hospital as a vacation. The nurses would come in and demand that I get up and walk around, "You need to get up on your feet and move around. It's not good for you just to lay there all day."
Duuuude, I have a toddler at home, please just let me lay here.
After you have a baby the nurses come in and smush on your belly and check out your ass because stitches. And to make sure you're treating your hemorrhoids. When my nurse came in to check me, she asked if I had hemorrhoids, and thankfully, I did not. No matter, she tore back the sheet and stared at my ass to make sure. As if she'd never seen a woman give birth to a baby and NOT have massive hemorrhoids. Talk about embarrassing, just have some stranger tear back your sheet and stare at your bare stitched ass. That's fun.
I was so shocked I could't say or do anything, I just sat there as she marveled at my ass and then tucked my sheet and blanket back around me like she hadn't just fully violated me. If you're a prude, don't get pregnant, okay? So many doctors and nurses are going to see your naked ass that you'll never ever be the same.
You haven't lived until some doctor shoots demoral into your ass and parades med students into your room to see your naked ass. (That's a story I'm NOT going to tell you. Don't even ask.)
Or, before they rush you into surgery they write on your body with permanent marker to make sure they're blasting a kidney stone out from the proper side, and they put you under, and when you wake up your Dr., a dude who just met your business end of things, smiles at you and presents you with a picture of the kidney stone he blasted to pieces. "I went ahead and cleared out all the stones on that side and put in a stint."
"A stint?" They gave me a morphine pump but assured me that some people couldn't even feel their stints. You mean I'm not feeling that piece of plastic they had shoved up into my ureter?
"We don't want the ureter to collapse, so we will leave it in for a week. You'll see me in my office to remove it..." Paperwork, directions to his nearest office, prescriptions, assurances.
Let me just tell you that, yes, you can feel stints, and they fucking hurt like a bitch. I spent the week in bed with glasses of water and cranberry juice on my bedside table to choke down the pain meds like clock work. Jamie took me to target and I bought a heating pad and a giant blue purse--and then the guy at the movie store gave me a free rental when I told him I'd just checked out of the hospital. I managed to make it home and then didn't leave the bed for more than a few minutes at a time. My sister-in-law came up and cleaned my house spotless and cooked and I got up to visit with her and smoke a cigarette...and I just couldn't. I lasted maybe ten minutes before I excused myself and lay back down on my side with the heating pad as high as it would go. It seemed like the piece of plastic became less stiff, almost bearable, with the heating pad on high. But it's got a safety setting that makes it kick off after a while, so I'd wake up in horrible pain to find the heating pad off.
Mom had, of course, whisked Anna Lee away to her house when they got the call. After Sarah and Amy had taken turns with her until Mom could get there.
It was three days before Dad's birthday when I went into the hospital. That's why I will never forget when it happened. I missed his birthday. But I did call him, I'm sure. Things get a little fuzzy when they give you your own morphine pump.
I didn't have a private room. Which wouldn't have bothered me in such a drug-induced stupor, except that the lady was a diabetic who had to have her blood sugar checked every couple hours and every time the nurses touched her she screamed bloody murder. The day nurse was a fucking bitch who was told to give me a morphine shot before I left the hospital because it would take a little while to get my prescription. Well, she didn't. They had long ago taken away the morphine pump in preparation for my release and I was in horrible pain. The NA kept asking me if I wanted her help to get a shower, but I was so miserable that I refused, saying I'd rather just wait until I got home so I could use my favorite body works stuff. I didn't really care that I smelled, I guess, Jamie insisted that all the morphine they gave me made me smell gross. But what did I care? I had just hit the button on the pump and tried to go back to sleep at this revelation.
When you go to the hospital they mail you a survey to ask you about the quality of treatment you received to help them improve. Well, I made a scathing review of the experience and added an extra sheet of paper to describe exactly how miserable my few days in the hospital were. Years later I found their response, tucked into my desk unopened, asking me to call or meet with someone at the hospital to talk further about my disappointing experience. Oh well. I was busy with kid and school and must have dismissed it as another survey or something.
Just FYI: If they give you a stint you may never have a kidney stone to get stuck in the ureter on that side again. Yay.
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