Hospitals: they take your pride away!

Been to a hospital lately? For your pride and ego, I hope not. I had heard some stories, some that even made me laugh, but I guess until you experience it yourself, you don’t really know just how humiliating it can be.

One of my friends had told me about this wheelchair with a hole in the seat. The concept of that Oh-so-special-chair is that the nurse sits you butt-naked on it and wheels you over the toilet to do your business. That’s where the hole comes handy! Anyway, the image made me laugh. I wasn’t laughing so much though when I had to be accompanied to the bathroom last July and that I had to have the nurse help me wipe my ass.

It’s always funnier when it happens to others. My husband is having a blast every time he recalled my stay at the hospital. Most of my friends think my story is hilarious. So here it is. If it can make people smile, I guess it’s worth the little embarrassment.

It was the day my son was born. He was a C-Section so it was scheduled and we had to stay at the hospital four days. We got to the hospital at 8am, although we were just schedule for 1pm. I had to be “prep” was what they said. Oh and did they prep me!

First, they made me put on that awful blue gown and walk around butt naked to my room. Well it wasn’t even my room; it was my waiting room! Here we were, my husband and I, thinking that we would slowly get settle in our room, watch TV or read a book until 1pm. How innocent were we!!!

So in that waiting room I was seen by a succession of nurses, doctors and interns, all less shy than one another. Okay, I know it’s their jobs and that they see naked people every day, all day long, but hey, I don’t get naked in front of strangers everyday and that should be taken into consideration. I believe they think that giving their names and status make it okay because they all start the same way: “ Hi my name is Blah Blah Blah and I am your nurse/doctor/ interns for the day.” After that up to your neck goes the blue gown and your butt is exposed to the world. So I was there, naked and petrified that five people saw me naked in the last hour, but they casually asked me all those health’s questions and it would have never occurred to them to lower back my gown once they were done.

They all left and I finally thought I was having a break until the procedure when this nurse came in. The blue gown was up again after she stated her name. “ Oh dear, we have to shave you,” she said. My face must have worth a million bucks because my husband burst into laughter.

I have no intention to be graphic but here’s the thing; when you are nine months pregnant, shaving can be a challenge because, well lets face it, you don’t see yourself there! Still, I have some pride and there was no way I was to go to the hospital unshaven. So the day before I put on a lot work and effort into the attempt of shaving and I really thought I did a good job. I got up on a small stool, surrounded myself by mirror and got to work but apparently all my work and effort were vain because it wasn’t to the nurse standard.

It might seem really silly, but to have someone shave you down there is quite humiliating, especially if you have your husband next to you dying of laughter, “ Oh my God, she is giving you a coupe longueuil!” For those of you who are not from Quebec and have no clue what a coupe longueuil is, well it’s pretty much the equivalent of a mullet. I wanted to strangle him. He even joked and asked the nurse if she could do him next. She giggled. At least they were having fun!

I’ll spare you the details of the actual procedure. So that bring us to about 2 pm. My son is born and healthy and I am in my real room. I am under morphine and can’t feel anything from the waist down. Two nurses come along. “ We are going to wash you.” Oh dear lord, please help me! They lifted me and swung me from side to side, and all the while I couldn’t feel a thing, I sure felt helpless and embarrassed. So I am praying for this to end as quickly as possible and just when I thought that it was over, one of them said, “ If you feel a little discomfort, it’s the suppository.” Here goes my husband laughing again. Oh, he did try to hold his laughter to be supportive but it didn’t quite work. Hearing someone holding back their laughter is probably worst than hearing them laugh out loud.

At that point, we are up to about fifteen persons who saw me naked which might be more than in my entire adult life. I am about to die of shyness and I got my pride stuck mid-throat. But my journey wasn’t over yet.

I had no intention to breastfeed but I let myself been convinced that I should at least give my son the colostrum (some kind of milk that come out right after birth and help protecting your baby from infection.) The thing is, my son wouldn’t feed from my breast. “ It’s not a problem,” the oldest nurse said, “ we can extract it.” And before I knew it I had two pairs of hands on my breast trying to extract milk in a little cup. I was so shocked that I just froze and let them do their business. More people had saw me naked and hold my breast in one day than in my whole life. That can be normal, yet I couldn’t do anything about it.

The next day I woke up, all happy because I assumed I would finally be functional and that I would be able to attend my own business without the help of anyone but my husband. Well let me tell you that I was wrong again. I was set for a few more little discomfort because apparently medication works its way better by suppositories and I was also instructed to call a nurse if I needed to go to the bathroom.

Thank God, they didn’t have the Oh-so-special-wheelchair mentioned by my friend but still I had to be accompanied to the bathroom, trailing my IV behind me. I was just lucky I got a private room with a bathroom.

So I get to the bathroom. I can’t even pull down my underwear (yeah I finally had the right to put them back on). So humiliating. “I’ll be right outside the door,” the nurse said. Well that was it; knowing she was there, I just couldn’t pee. I felt so silly when I had to called her back and tell her it didn’t work. “I thought you had to go.” “Yeah so did I!” She pulled back up my underwear and helped me wobble back to my bed. Thirty minutes later, when there was no way I could hold it in any longer, I called her again.

All smile, she brought me back to the bathroom, pulled down my underwear and secured me on the bowl. They might not have had the special wheelchair but they had the pee-sample-retrieval-bucket, which consists into a little plastic bucket attach to the inside of the toilet for you to pee in. The bucket is small and I hadn’t peed in 24 hours. (I had a catheter.) Not a good combination. The nurse is yet again outside the door, this time cheering me. Yeah for real, she literally cheered me. It didn’t matter how shy I was, that time I couldn’t hold it in. But not only couldn’t I hold it in, I couldn’t stop it either. I felt like I peed forever and all I could think of was: “Please don’t overflow the stupid bucket. Please don’t overflow the bucket!” The last thing I needed was to cover myself with pee and needed to be wash again. I thankfully stopped one millimeter short and prevent the overflow.

Those are only the first 24 hours of my stay and I spared you some details. Let me tell you that when I walked out of the hospital four days later, there was no pride left in me. So my advice for you: if you have to go to the hospital, be prepared. You can afford to be proud or prude!