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© Copyright 2000, Jim Loy
"Hello, I am Jim. And I will be your patient for tonight." I said that to one of the nurses, and she said that no one had ever said that to her before.
I would like to thank the many skilled and caring people who helped me survive my recent stays at Bozeman Deaconess Hospital. In particular, Dr. Hildner, Dr. Fuller, Dr. Person, and several other doctors, and a whole lot of wonderful nurses (including Christie and Glen and many others) most of whose names I cannot remember (sorry), and all of the little people (leprechauns). And I also apologize if I got any of the following facts wrong. Much of the following is in jest.
The hospital motto seems to be, "A whole lot of little pains will help cure your big pains." First of all, there were more tubes in my left arm than you can shake a stick at. I actually verified this by trying to shake a stick at them, which turned out to be impossible. From my other arm, people from the lab extracted blood for their nefarious experiments. The lab seems to be made up of four or five people who disguise themselves to get patients to admit their names before they realize their mistake. One of the most effective disguises is one named Poppy. I actually thought that Poppy existed, but she was just so darned cheerful and so darned good at accumulating blood, "I don't have any blood left, but my doctor here will give you some."
Morphine is effective at keeping pain just out of the way, and is effective at taking up your day with sleep. As I lay there, I thought I was forgetting what my duties as patient were. Was there something that I was supposed to be doing to cure myself? I knew that I had to make some life saving decision here. But the sign on my wall which said "Under Construction" kept mutating: "Unmove Communications," "Inner Art Removal," "Inini Ininini inininI ininI." It had mutated into an immensely meaningful palindrome. I had a decision to make here, and the sign kept mutating, and my pain increased. What to do? I took the easy way out and took another dose of morphine (beep). But I was sure I had just missed some valuable opportunity. And the next time this opportunity came around, I might be asleep, or the sign on the wall might become even more meaningful.
And then there were minor things. My main jobs were to drink water and to urinate (which became a major part of my life); the nurses measured both. The hospital gown is designed to remind you that there is a limit to the dignity that you are allowed. The nurses kept sticking their hi-tech thermometer in my ear; a couple of them rammed it in pretty roughly. Every once in a while, someone would put the straw in the wrong side of the water mug, so the handle was facing the right direction for a left-hander; so I sometimes drank left-handed. They sometimes stuck little pencils in my Kleenex box, so the Kleenex wouldn't come out. For a time I was in room 135, which had a very depressing view; they should board up that window. The meals were very good, mostly. The comb they gave me had sharp spots on it; children are not allowed to run while carrying such a comb. Never tell a doctor that you have not had a bowel movement in several days; for he/she will then make sure that you have many surprise bowel movements. I don't like TV (I watched a movie and a hockey game, in a week and a half); but I found that hearing someone else's TV is 100 times worse than TV itself; mostly they kept people's TV's quiet. The hospital bed, with its electrical controls for elevating the head or knees is a miracle, I want one of those; but my feet were right at the end (I'm 6' tall), and there seemed to be a draft there, as my feet were almost always cold. And the controls are confusing; the up button should be above the down button, instead of next to it.
Their other motto is, "We'll make you almost as good as new, and then we'll charge you an arm and a leg."
All of the above "complaints" are minor. Essentially, people were very helpful. Those nurses didn't really have to pick up my box of Kleenex when I dropped it. They were wonderful, most of the time.
Also see Bozeman Deaconess Hospital.