The Former Traveling Spotlight

The tales of a "30" something gay former stand-up comic living in NYC who is searching for his soul mate or soul...which ever comes first.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

You Smell Something?

What a difference a week makes. Over the past 10 days, my routine has been fairly the same. Wake up at 6 am, have a chicken broth for breakfast, pop a Percocet and go for my morning walk (usually the four blocks to Broadway). Over the past week, I've been increasing my walk length and speed. Sadly...I'm going to miss those hard core pain killers...as now all I have left is Vicodin...not nearly as good. See the pleasant look on my face?

This is what a pain free recovery should look like. Notice the morphine dilated pupils. It shouldn't surprise me that I don't even remember this photo being taken.

Do you smell anything right now? Yeah...Sorry about that...It would be me. I've been wearing the same bandages since the surgery. At first, I didn't think it was me, as in the hospital everything smells, but it was the nurse's aid that first keyed me in. My only immigrated from Western Africa a month before I had surgery nurse's aid. She walked into my room the day after surgery, helped me out of bed and put me into the chair before changing my bed.

She then looked at me and wrinkled her nose slightly and said "You need to bath!" After bringing in a basin of water and soap, she crumbled up my sheets from the night before into a pile on the bed and looked at me and said, "Take off your gown!" I didn't dare challenge the woman, but figured I'd wait until she left the room before I stood completely naked.

That wouldn't be the case. She stepped back and waited for me to disrobe. With curtain open, door to the hallway wide open and a perfect view of the nurses station, I had to remove my robe. I stood there, right hand cupping and somewhat covering the Doyle "breakfast special", while my left arm still had the IV needle in the arm. The woman looked me up and down and said "very nice."

***blank stare***

Very nice? Did she actually say very nice? Well I'm glad my naked, stoned out of my mind, body is pleasing to your eyes! It wasn't until later that I realized she confused the words "nice" and "good". At least I hope so. But right then I didn't have time to think about it much, because the woman began giving me a sponge bath.
I feel a little strange, as this woman (through a wash towel) touched me in areas that I don't think any woman has ever touched me before. Jeazy creazy, in her country, we'd probably be married now.

This was not was I would have expected, and although it was nice to get somewhat clean, I'm a little surprised they didn't have a male nurse's aid to do this. If it was the other way around, and it was a woman patient...hell would have frozen over before a man would have bathed her.

She left the room and I stood naked for a few minutes until she brought me a new gown. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the bemused look of the roommate, who was all too aware of what I was having to go through.

When she left, he finally spoke.

"I see you met the nurse's aid. Aren't you getting morphine?" he asked.
"Yes." I answered.
"That can really constipate you. You know she gives the enemas as well."

And that was the second reason I asked for discharge the next day!

Patrick - 2:19 PM -

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