Forget the underwear...

I learned a long time ago that minor surgery is when they do the operation on someone else, not you.

~Bill Walton

Remember when your mother always said "Make sure you have on clean underwear, you may be in an accident and have to go to the hospital."? Well, I am here to say, forget the underwear, they make you take it off at the hospital. Make sure your legs are shaved. As many of you recall I blogged once about how I am a late bloomer. Here is more proof, appendicitis is rarely ever seen after the age of 40, and is most prevalent among teenage boys. Yet somehow I managed to spend 5 days in the hospital having what is considered to be a minor procedure.

I love the picture above telling us there are no scars to show off...perhaps I need to email them a picture of the 3 inch long incision on my lower abdomen, no laparoscopic procedures on this belly! I won't go on and on about my fiasco, I am finally on the mend and working hard to get my stamina back.

For those of you in the healthcare field I have collected a few observations; don't tell a woman who has vomited every drop of fluid in her body nonstop for 12 hours that "it's just a bug going around, you'll be fine in 24 hours", don't scream at a patient whose IV has been alarming for 20 minutes that someone will fix it when they are done with report, don't wake a (finally) sleeping patient at 4:30 in the morning to write your name on a chalkboard because "there are some inspectors going around" after all the wrong patient name and doctor have been on there for the last three days, don't tell them their blood transfusion is going fine...until you've looked under the blankets to see the pool of blood covering their bed, and don't tell a patient that "technically we aren't supposed to use this machine when it's this hot" and my personal favorite following a diagnostic scan, "that was fun, bring a keg the next time and we'll have a party!".

Healthcare givers should be welcoming, skillful, and respectful. I am happy to say I did meet a few who fit that description, hopefully others will take notice and follow their lead. The picture below is Marilyn Monroe recovering from her appendectomy in 1953. I am almost a week post-op and I don't look a thing like that, then again, I didn't look like that before my surgery! :)