Hospital Fever: Catch It!
Tuesday 26th February 2008 @ 8:39 AM
I was thinking recently about the times I’ve been in the hospital. For my own benefit I am going to try to make a list of them. I’m going to go reverse-chronologically, because I’m working on my tachyon impression.
- About two years ago, I think (so 2006ish) I crushed my hand in a machine at work. Hours later the bleeding had not stopped and when I got to ER, I found out I’d lost a fingernail. Not a terribly long wait time. Some X-Rays and some poking and I got called a very good patient. It did take the convincing of like eleven people at work to get me to bother taking that trip. And even then I didn’t go straight from work. I went home to check my email and got a slice of pizza before I finally walked to the hospital.
- Around Summer 2001 I had what appeared to be blood in bodily functions that blood is not supposed to be a part of. It was my mother’s idea to get it checked out at the emergency room, plus I got to miss a day of work (I was a security guard then). So… this trip was essentially me getting probed in those certain regions. I remember making lots of jokes that the doctors and nurses either didn’t get or weren’t paying attention to. I don’t remember the wait being too long and the problem went away on its own immediately after that with me never actually getting an answer what caused it (though the doctor mentioned that some cereals have dye that can look like blood when it comes out…) More importantly I remember we decided to stop at KFC on the way home from the hospital and they were out of chicken. No fooling. Also when I called my employers to tell them I’d miss a day, they demanded I get a note from the doctor. They never came to get the note from me and I think I still have it around here somewhere (I keep it because like a week later Kip wrote his medical opinion of me, “Yer ah jackass!” on it).
- Another time, I think I was about sixteen, but don’t ask me to figure out what year that would have been, I was taking out the garbage on a snowy day and slipped in the ditch and twisted my ankle. I remember my brother asking me if I was okay and, being embarrassed I just told him to go inside. I literally crawled up the stairs to the house and eventually went to bed. I lived in the basement back then, so the next morning I again had to literally crawl up some stairs to get and my mother, seeing this, brought me to the hospital. I remember being impressed by the fact that when they saw me limping my way to the door with my mother’s help some orderlies greeted me with a wheelchair. I suppose that they do that stuff every day, though, so they know what they’re doing. The wait this time was really bad. Hours of sitting in that wheelchair and waiting. I got some X-rays but nothing was broken, so it was ice and not using the leg. Made sense.
- Junior High I got a weird rash one day. It was all over my legs. I don’t remember all that much of that particular trip, aside from the female doctor seeing my junk. I do remember that the rash was because of something which Sounded like “Hypo-purple-itis” and that made sense because the rash was purplish, but of course I don’t know what the thing actually was called.
- And once a very, very young PDR had some manner of dehydration and actually had to spend a couple nights in the hospital. It was over the holidays and, the way I remembered it growing up I missed Christmas. I have been assured though that I was actually home at Christmas and it was New Years Eve that I missed. I guess my child-mind equated not getting to play with all his (no doubt awesome) presents as essentially missing Christmas. The only important thing to come out of this is now, when I get a physical and they ask if I’ve ever had a stay in the hospital I have to answer about this vague thing instead of just saying that I’ve not.
- Also, my understanding is that I was born in a hospital. I’m taking other people’s word for that one, though because I sure don’t remember that. And you’d think you’d remember something that important.
So that’s that. The stuff of future medical textbooks.
Tachyons are the one that move backwards in time right? Am I making that up?
Permalink · 3 Comments · Journal
3 Comments
Tuckster · 1198
Tuesday 26th February 2008 @ 3:37 pm
Pat, I have to tell you, I’m over halfway through my first year of medical school and I haven’t been taught about your experiences yet. But, I’m slack, too. Oh, it would scare patients everywhere if they knew how slack. In fact, next Hallowe’en I might dress up as me.
In other news, I noticed that the Herald has been designated one of Canada’s best employers! I wondered how you felt about that.
RadChipmunk · 1199
Thursday 28th February 2008 @ 6:02 am
You were a security guard at one point? That explains my thinking you would make a good goon and/or bouncer.
PDR · 1202
Saturday 1st March 2008 @ 7:19 am
Well, Tucker, my first thought was “LIES!”
But then I face facts. I have a really easy job. This is one of the reasons I don’t quit. I don’t do much and I get paid for it. It’s a pretty easy job for everyone, most of the time. I might have two nights a month that I actually have to do anything close to “real work” anymore.
Furthermore, there are people in this company who are really, really incompetent and they don’t get in trouble or lose their jobs because of who they know or are related to. I’m talking about people so unable to do what they’re doing that if they were on a sitcom you’d be like “nobody is that stupid” but they are! Those are, I assume, the people who voted for the Herald in that thing.
And yes Rad, I am essentially a punching machine. Don’t mess with me people.