Hospital Strippin’

After my first ambulance ride and my arrival at the hospital, I found there was more to settling in than simply getting a bed and starting the pain medications.  The paramedics pushed me into the entrance hall and told me someone would be with me shortly.  In the excitement of my accident I realized I hadn’t told my husband where I was.  Ed gets frustrated with me because I’m a little clumsy and tend to be more concerned with speed than safety.  When he answered the phone, I reminded him of times that bad things happened but years later we laughed about it.  He asked me why we were going down memory lane and I told him we had another one of those events we would laugh about in the future.  After my call, I remained in the hall long enough to familiarize myself with the surroundings and started providing directory services to arriving visitors (I am the tiniest bit extroverted and talk to everyone). Finally the first of two x-ray techs came to take me to x-ray rooms where they would torture me by moving me from the gurney to an x-ray table and back. The second x-ray tech came sometime later.  He repeated the same cruel process (although in a separate x-ray room and machine).  He returned me to the entry hall for a second time to give directions and swap jokes with anyone who would stop and talk.  Someone finally came to move me to my hospital room and two nice nurses came in as soon as I arrived.  With the help of the transporter, the nurses made the final tortuous transfer from the gurney to the hospital bed. The nurses told me that as soon as they got me into my hospital gown they would turn on the happy juice which I was looking forward to.  I thought I was finally movement free.  They were very efficient in getting me undressed until they got to my drawers. I started freaking out a little because I realized they were going to move me again to get my boxers off.  The two nurses took pity on me and got two more nurses to come in and help.  A fifth nurse stopped by the door to see what was going on and I started calling the fifth nurse Aretha (she looked like a younger Aretha Franklin) .  Aretha came into the room to lend a hand. The five of them were able to successfully remove my drawers with very little pain, get my gown on and start the happy juice flowing.  I thanked all five ladies and told them I was flattered that so many attractive women had taken a look at my junk. I told them I felt that pain may have reduced the fluffiness of my goodies and, if they would like, they were welcome to come back and take another look in a couple of days.  None of them took advantage of my offer; however, Aretha came back by to visit twice a day until I was released. I never did find out her real name, she said Aretha was just fine.

Some of my friends have asked why they didn’t simply cut the boxers off. The only reason I can think of is that I was wearing expensive new boxers. Perhaps the nurses thought my drawers were simply too precious to destroy.