Wednesday, March 10, 2010

One girl's appendectomy is another girl's blog.

My sister Tammy had her appendix removed last week so I spent a good part of Thursday at the hospital with her. Unfortunately, the first nurse she had when she got into her room was not friendly at all. She barely spoke to Tammy, wouldn't use more than a grunt to answer any of her questions, and, instead of telling Tammy her name, she just wrote in on a dry erase board and then walked out of the room. It was so unbelievable.

My mom brought Tammy's kids up to see her in the afternoon and, being the mature adults we are, Tammy and I told them all about how mean the nurse was. Just as we were finished telling them about all the rude things she had done, she walked into the room. She was smiling - sort of - and my mom said "Oh, good - she's smiling." OUT LOUD. Immediately my butt clenched. (Sorry, Mom - I know you hate that expression but that's what you get for . . . well . . . making my butt clench.) I sat there with perfect posture, smiling and trying to not look like the one who had ratted her out. That's when Ben - who has absolutely NO concept of the "inside voice" - leans over to my mom and says in a stage whisper "IS THAT THE MEAN NURSE??"

That's when my butt muscles started to cramp.

After that, I stepped out of Tammy's room to make a phone call - and stretch my butt out - and, while I was out there, I overheard a nurse talking to another nurse and saying in a strong redneck accent: "I talked to Debbie today and she say-ed that they found her Dad day-ed in the bay-ed. 'Parently he'd ha-ed a heart attay-ack. Didn't appear to have suffered a'tall. They did an uh-TOP-sy on 'im and 'parently he'd ha-ed five or six of 'em."

I had two immediate thoughts upon hearing her: 1) this is hardly the conversation one wants to overhear while in a hospital and 2) ummmmmmm . . . did she just say uh-TOP-sy?

Shouldn't correct pronunciation of certain medical words and procedures be prerequisite to receiving your nursing degree? Or working in the medical field in any capacity? Incorrect pronunciation of such fundamental words can really shake your confidence in someone's intelligence. Would you hand your baby over to a doctor who said she was going to cut its umBIBlical cord? Or would you let a nurse near you if she said that she was going to remove your cathEEter? I think not. She'd remove that cathEEter from me over my day-ed body.

You know - right before the uh-TOP-sy . . .

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh, good times, that unbiblical cord!

Tracy said...

So she DID have appendicitis! I remember at the P&P night that she seemed like she was in substantial pain. Poor Tammy!

Um, just out of curiosity...was Debbie the nurse? That could explain why she was having such a bad day! ;)

Catherine said...

That's funny, Tracy. No - our nurse was named Vanessa. Not so nice!!

Emma said...

OMG!!! I am crying! Laughing all over again at Mom selling us out & then Ben.....great blog!!