Wednesday, May 05, 2010

Just My Strange Sense of Humor

Okay -one more story tonight relating to my hospital stay this weekend and then, I'm gonna call it quits for the evening and head to bed!

And this one -well, because it involves some information about colostomy stuff, just a little forewarning here about this one but I found it somewhat amusing. Then too, ya'll probably know all too well that my sense of humor sometimes is more than a little bit off center now and again.

When the E.R. doctor told me and Mandy that I was going to be transferred to the hospital in Pittsburgh, Mandy said she would run home and gather up a few items we both figured I would need to have with me while there cause we didn't know if I'd be there maybe a week or so, if it ended up that I had to have emergency surgery. But one thing we figured I would need to take with me -to be on the safe side -besides clean underwear and my tooth brush and those kind of things that every one probably would pack for a hospital stay -was that she probably should include a couple barriers and pouches that are necessities of life for a colostomy patient. But to be sure, she asked the E.R. doctor and he said no, don't bother packing that as the hospital would be able to provide that for me if I needed a change in that area, ya know.

So, she tossed a few things in a bag for me and rushed back over to the hospital just in time to hand my bag to the EMTs who were then ready to load me into the ambulance. (She also took a picture using her cellphone too of them doing that -a lovely shot, I'm sure in which I was flipping her the bird and calling her a name that sounds somewhat like witch but begins with a "B" because she knows I am really not fond of having my picture taken under any circumstances. Lucky for me that her cell phone as since stopped functioning and since she has to take it to the supplier/company and get it replaced, that photo may then be lost forever ya know!)

Anyway, due to a variety of other side circumstances, on Sunday I found myself in need of a new barrier and pouch and there I was with no extra ones in my bag. So I managed to flag a nurse down and explain my dilemma and asked her if she could procure a set for me.

Well, she sort of hem-hawed around a bit, telling me she would have to order a set to be sent up from wherever in blazes a big hospital like this might have stuff like that stored and about 30-40 minutes later, she returned to my room with four sets in hand.

However, these were not of the same brand as the ones I use but fortunately, I had used that particular brand for a short time after I first had the colostomy so I did know how they worked -basically, anyway.

But the strange thing about the pouches was this -the bag was twice the size of the brand I normally use and they all had a little spout type thing that you pull the plug to empty the bugger and the waste then passes through this really narrow tube-like apparatus.

I looked at that and was more than a bit puzzled by the appearance as it was really much different than any I had seen before but well, circumstances being what they were, I figured they knew what they were sending me there, ya know.

But the whole thing really set my mind to whirling and reminded me of something else from years back too. Does anyone here remember back in the 80s I think it was, the old joke then about Page 655 in the Sears Roebuck catalog?

If you don't recall that -it was a big snicker thing back then as it was a page showing different types of men's underwear that Sears carried and on one particular pair, supposedly the photo of the male model was such that a particular part of his body was exposed and was, well, hanging a bit below the bottom of the underwear he was sporting. I don't know if that was really what people could see there or if it was a blur in the photo perhaps or what, but needless to say, just about everyone I knew back then often made wise cracks at every possible time about that page in the Sears catalog.

And seeing this pouch they had given me reminded me of that picture, that joke and yes, I know, some off-the-wall humor via all of that too.

But it also got me thinking that if the hospital thought I needed this particular set-up to take care of my issues, maybe they thought I was gonna need something like vigrx plus too along the way.

I didn't really give it much more thought though until today when my friend -the retired LPN called me -and I was telling her about the barrier and pouch issue and when I described the pouch they had given me she almost screamed in my ear that they had given me a pouch for people who have urinary issues and need a barrier/pouch set up to take care of that!

Okay -you might not see the humor in this whole thing but to me, I howled laughing about how they could have gotten this stuff confused -who got it wrong and had requested the wrong set of appliances for me!

So if they could confuse that then who knows, they very well might have thought I would want the other product somewhere along the way too, couldn't they?

Thankfully, I definitely do not need that item though cause last I checked I'm still a female!

3 comments:

Maggie May said...

Lets hope they are more vigilant with ops and things!
Pity your daughter didn't just pop the necessary items into your bag.
Just as well you had a sense of humour.
Maggie

Nuts in May

CiCi said...

Your humor is wonderful. Better to laugh, huh. I agree with the first comment, next time put what you think you may need in the bag and don't ask the doctor. Glad you are doing good and are working on getting better health. You still have a long time to be around and write in your blog!!

terri said...

I'm glad you could get a laugh out of that blunder! Doesn't instill a lot of faith in the medical community though, does it?