Medical Update, 2nd of 2020, part II

After I wrote such a long post on Monday, I realized that there were some rather humorous things that happened while I was in the hospital. Yes, even amongst the pain and misery and general yuckiness that happens when they wake you up every few hours to make sure your vitals are still in normal ranges, there were some spots that were quite funny. It is important to remember these bright spots!!

First up, from the emergency room. When I arrived at the emergency room in horrible pain, the ER doc was worried that I might have a compression fracture in my spine, so they sent me for xrays. I was pleasantly floating in a sea of morphine, so I honestly didn’t much care about anything, but I did eventually notice that people who came in to the waiting area for xrays after me were being taken in before me. I mustered the energy to ask for a status after a bit and was told that I hadn’t been taken back for my scans because they were waiting on the results of my pregnancy test.

In “normal” visits, this usually makes me a bit mad because my records are pretty clear. The influence of the morphine made me giggle a little, I told her that they’d not performed a pregnant test, and that pregnancy was literally impossible because I’d had a complete hysterectomy in 2017. The look on the woman’s face was beyond priceless and they took me right back, apologizing profusely.

I may have repeated the tired joke about assumptions, while giggling …. not my usually mo, but I’m also not usually on narcotics.

The second example is maybe more of a hmmmmm than a funny. There was a sign in my hospital room that couldn’t be missed, it was right on the outside of the bathroom door.

Elliot and I spent an inordinate amount of time pondering and discussing why it says “very good care” and not “excellent care.” Seems they are setting the bar a little low or something. I did get excellent care from almost every person I came into contact with, but we just couldn’t let this one go and besides, sitting around in a hospital room is not all that exciting so we had to find something to talk about!

The third and final hilarious incident happened the third and last night I was in the hospital. Elliot stayed with me that night and he brought some of my home medication, which included my medical marijuana. I’d been given clearance to take my home medication in the hospital since the hospital pharmacy just doesn’t stock the things that I normally take, like Piqray or medical marijuana. So, we’d settled in for the night, I took my normal night medication and the CNA came in to take my vitals. While my blood pressure was normal, my heart rate was rather high. I knew why. When she asked if I was in pain, I said, as innocently as possible, “I’m always in pain.” As soon as she left and probably noted that I needed a psych consult, I immediately turned to Elliot and giggled about being high. He, of course, laughed his head off. I know, I had permission and I have a prescription, there’s still just a little too much of the rule following midwesterner in me still.

Proof that circumstances, albeit often grim, are not all doom and gloom. There are always bright spots, sacred moments, hilarious moments and moments that remind us that we are human.

I am reminded of a poem that I read in the play IV where Anya Silver talked about smiling and wishing the nurses a Merry Christmas amidst the horror of bad news and how we must retain our humanity. It’s important, these glimpses, of a life without cancer, these glimpses that remind us we are more than this disease.