A Few Humorous Stories

School started on a Tuesday this year.  Just to make things interesting, an infection began in my central line on Monday so at 2 am Tuesday morning, Loren took me to the hospital where I was admitted.  He made it home before any of our girls were awake but for the second year in a row, I was in the hospital when they started school.  There isn't much they need me for at their ages but just taking their picture and wishing them a good day at school is easier done at home than in the hospital.  Thankfully, they are not as sentimental as I am and truth be told, they were probably grateful that I wasn't there to be mushy.  The doctors did decide to remove my central line this time (this was my 3rd infection and 2nd line) so no more infections!  But while I was in the hospital for a few days....humor was found.

Now many of you will find this disgusting, but I do like to eat Cream of Wheat for breakfast.  I like it made with milk and raisins with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top.  They do serve Cream of Wheat at the hospital but it is with brown sugar not cinnamon sugar and usually no raisins.  This time I decided to ask for my breakfast the way I would make it oat home.  Their catch phrase at food services is "we make everything fresh".  So, I called to order my breakfast and asked if they could put in some raisins before they cook it.  (I microwave mine and if you put in the raisins before you cook it, the raisins get plump and juicy...yum!)  I was told (my mom later informed me that I was naive to think otherwise) that they just make a big pot of it and serve it from there so they could not put raisins in.  I was disappointed but ordered it anyway.  As I was hanging up, the person on the other end said, "Since we make everything fresh it will be up in 45 minutes."  I almost laughed out loud - she just told me that there is a big pot sitting on the stove!

As many of you have experienced, when you are in the hospital, you do not get a full night's sleep.  In order to be ready with the correct treatment for the day, your blood is drawn between 3 and 5 am.  With a central line, this is not a big deal, the nurses just draw blood out of one of the lumens (I had 3) and you just roll over and go back to sleep.  Since the central line was removed, blood was drawn the old-fashioned way - with a needle.  So, I am asleep and about 3:30 am the light is turned on and I hear a woman's voice with a German accent tell me her name and that she is here to draw my blood.  If only you could read a German accent this would be better.  I was given commands in short sentences.

What is your name?  Birthdate?  Give me your left arm.  You will feel a poke. (Ouch!  That was a little more than a poke.) About a minute passes - there is a lot of blood to draw.  Then the needle is out, a bandaid is on and her parting words.  Have a nice day.  

The light goes out and I am left laying there thinking to myself - what just happened?  Was that the German Inquisition?  Whatever that was - it surreal and really funny.  Goodnight.