Hospital - Day 3 - Race Car Pyjamas

The best part about my third day in the hospital was that I got to put on my pyjamas. No more bloody hospital gown, I transitioned to my race car pyjamas. Flannel, custom made, race car pyjamas. Oh yeah!

Dignity is a funny word because I think it gets confused with vanity, or at least that's how most people see it. When you're in the hospital a lot of people say you need to park your dignity at the door. I think they're wrong, I think it's your vanity you need to part at the door. Your dignity is how you treat people and how they treat you. Regardless of whether my ass was hanging out of the back of my gown or having a nurse come in and shave my chest and other areas I never lost my dignity and I never felt the healthcare people threatening my dignity. Vanity, possibly. Having the big white stripe down my chest was pretty funny looking.

Imagine, someone in the healthcare industry has to treat every person the same. How many of us can say we can do that? Regardless of whether the person is 90, 20, hard of hearing, faking pain, or terminal; they show up to work and do what has to be done. If a chest has to shaved, a catheter removed, thoracic tubes pulled or the washroom cleaned up after an accident; they do it. Was my dignity threatened when the pulled the cather? Hell no. How else was it going to come out?

I received my pyjamas as a going away gift from the folks at the office. The pyjamas came with a housecoat with the IM-Ontrack logo (the company I work for) and a bucket of bubble gum. I thought cool, these PJs are going to look great! The pyjamas couldn't have been more perfect: they are unique, they're cool and they're practical (warm). I can strut around knowing that nobody else in the OHI ward looks like me.

Strut may be too strong of a word to describe my walk, but today M. and I walked the ward hand in hand. M. and I did the full loop twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. The walks themselves aren't so bad, but my back was starting to hurt, right behind the shoulder blade and around the spine. So to rephrase I hobbled (because walk might even be a stretch) holding M.'s hand, only now I was sporting my race car pyjamas. Dignity never gone, vanity returned.

By now a routine is starting to form. I wake up several times during the night, look at the clock and go back to sleep. This in and out of sleep goes on until about 7:30 am, then I just stair at the clock. When I wake my back and neck ache something fierce, so I get up and wait for breakfast to be delivered by the Food People. After breakfast its the nurse shift change and someone new shows up to check my temperature, breathing, blood pressure and give me my pills for the day. Then after the nurse someone comes in to take blood and another comes in to record an ECG. I then head to bed where I stair at the clock and fade in and out of sleep. M. and my folks arrive around 10am. Between 10am and 7pm we talk and I fade in and out of sleep. My folks head home around 7pm and M. and I talk for a while. She has been sending updates to everyone via email and she reads the responses to me. A nurse shows up around 8pm to give me more medication and do a final check before I fade into sleep. It takes a bit of time for the medication to kick in and at about 9pm M. packs up reluctantly and heads back home. I go to sleep staring at the clock...in my race car pyjamas.