As I mentioned, being a patient in a hospital is altogether new for me. I've logged many hours in these buildings visiting friends or tending to parents. Apart from my appendectomy, this is my first time in the embarrassing gown and the uncomfortable adjustable bed.
I have a fair amount of memory of having my appendix out when I was a small lad. The event did not scare me but it scared my father, who was as compassionate and kind as any other man who was never up for sainthood. (If they gave Jews equal consideration, he'd be a shoo-in.) But he was a nervous man and the fact that he was nervous convinced me I was supposed to be. I remember that, I remember being wheeled into a big room and put to sleep and I remember waking up in a different place with the odd sensation that while closing my incision, the surgeon had absent-mindedly sewn me to the blankets and sheets.
This was, of course, a kids' wing of a hospital. There was a little playroom and as soon as I could walk, I was encouraged to go in there and play with the toys that were there, none of which interested me. That was until I found a small stash of 78 RPM records and a little parti-colored record player (remember record players?) on which to play them. They were all lame fairy tales except for one record, which was by Paul Winchell, who was already one of my five-or-so favorite people to watch on TV. On one side, he and Jerry Mahoney sang, "When You Come to the End of a Lollipop" and on the other, he and Knucklehead Smif warbled a little ditty called, "Run Little Rabbit, Run." For the next two days, until they let me go home, I played the hell out of that record. It wasn't so much that I liked the songs as that I liked the sound of Winchell. He made me feel like I was still in touch with my real world. I think the hospital may even have checked me out a bit prematurely because the nurses in that ward couldn't stand another chorus of "Run Little Rabbit, Run."
Where I am now, I'm in a private room. I have a TV with a pretty good array of channels but, alas, no TiVo. As much as I moan about the cuisine, right now if you gave me my choice of Dr. Hoggly-Woggly's ribs or the ability to pause, rewind and record shows for later viewing, I might opt for the latter. Spoiled by TiVo is what I am. Last night, I tried to watch A Fish Called Wanda on TCM but every time someone came in to take my blood pressure, check my blood sugar, check my oxygen, reinsert my I.V. needle, start a new I.V. drip, deliver the evening snack, etc., I had to turn the TV off for a few minutes and I finally gave up. I made it about as far as the scene where Kevin Kline dangles John Cleese out the window and that was it. When I get home, I'll haul out the DVD. I have watched a number of shows here I ordinarily do not watch and have been reminded why it is I never watch them. Exactly when was Bob Barker replaced with an audio-animatronic with one facial expression?
I also have my laptop here. That helps. And visitors.
I had an uncle once who wouldn't go near hospitals; not until they had to put him in them. He saw hospitals as negative places, buildings filled with pain and suffering and people with no hope. I see them as just the opposite: Places where everyone is committed to prolonging and saving lives. (Okay, have it your way: Everyone but the kitchen staff.) Somewhere on this weblog, I may have mentioned a friend who's an emergency room doctor at another hospital, the one to which I often take my mother. He's been there 20+ years and had many chances to be promoted out of the pace and messiness of the department. Which is exactly what he doesn't want. He thinks that job is what doctorin' is all about, dealing with an endless variety of real crisis situations and seeing some immediate good come out of his efforts. I lack a good 98.6% of the skills you need to be a doctor, starting with the ability to look at blood and injuries without diving for the vomitorium. The only three things I think I'd be good at would be bedside manner, taking Wednesdays off and billing. Whenever I'm around doctors and sense people going out in better shape than when they arrived, I think about how satisfying and blessed the job must be.