Those relentless hospital forms that ask you to tick off the languages that you speak, read, and write (in triplicate) don't quite ask you the really useful stuff - do you speak/read/write Hospitalese? If you say No they ought to send you for remedial classes before hospitalizing you. Here's why.
After my son was born nearly five years ago, I had legions of hospital staffers who trooped in after my surgery asking me weird questions.
Imagine this scenario, if you will:
"Have you evacuated?" asks a resident gynaecologist.
"Why, is there a fire or an earthquake?" I ask dimly alarmed.
"No, have you evacuated, voided, passed flatus?" she asks impatiently. I sigh. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good word game at three in the morning as much as any woman who has just had a baby ripped from her uterus does, but my inner thesaurus is not particularly at its best.
"What does that mean?" I ask admitting linguistic defeat.
She clicks her tongue at my unbelievable imbecility and gestures meaningfully towards my nether regions and then in the vague direction of the bathroom several times until I finally get what she is asking me.
Soon after, another girl wanders in wanting to know if I am in a consanguineous marriage. I recall vaguely that sanguineous has something to do with blood - I reason that she either wants to know if my husband is related to a con man or if he is my blood relative. I shake my head no to both.
Now if there's one thing you need to know about medical histories, it's that they're top secret and no one ever divulges anything they have heard to anyone else. So you have to repeat the same things to doctors, nurses, ward boys, florists, plumbers and other mysterious people who drop in to ask you about your fascinating evacuation, voiding and flatus habits. I am also woken up and asked if I am still in a non-consanguineous marriage. Well, unless I have accidentally married a long lost cousin while in the throes of a childbirth-induced midnight delirium, I guess I am.
Anyway, in my five days in the hospital, I pick up these words like a pro. So when I hear a knock and a girl enters I launch into the by-now familiar litany. "I have evacuated, voided, and passed flatus multiple times," I tell the startled girl and as an additional bonus offer up some helpful nuggets of history that no one has ever thought to ask me, "Oh and I have been regurgitating regularly throughout my pregnancy, though i had no issues with sanguineous discharges. And talking about all things sanguineous, I am still in a non-consanguineous a marriage," I add for good measure.
The girl stammers, "Umm, I'm from the Nutrition Department and I just wanted to know what you'd like to eat."
Eat! I'm sure she has violated basic hospital protocol. At the very least, she ought to have asked me what I wanted to orally ingest into my abdominal cavity. But maybe she is new here. I look at her, my heart filling with newfound maternal compassion. Why, she's a mere babe in the clinical woods just learning to babble hospitalese! No matter little one, you'll soon learn!
After my son was born nearly five years ago, I had legions of hospital staffers who trooped in after my surgery asking me weird questions.
Imagine this scenario, if you will:
"Have you evacuated?" asks a resident gynaecologist.
"Why, is there a fire or an earthquake?" I ask dimly alarmed.
"No, have you evacuated, voided, passed flatus?" she asks impatiently. I sigh. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good word game at three in the morning as much as any woman who has just had a baby ripped from her uterus does, but my inner thesaurus is not particularly at its best.
"What does that mean?" I ask admitting linguistic defeat.
She clicks her tongue at my unbelievable imbecility and gestures meaningfully towards my nether regions and then in the vague direction of the bathroom several times until I finally get what she is asking me.
Soon after, another girl wanders in wanting to know if I am in a consanguineous marriage. I recall vaguely that sanguineous has something to do with blood - I reason that she either wants to know if my husband is related to a con man or if he is my blood relative. I shake my head no to both.
Now if there's one thing you need to know about medical histories, it's that they're top secret and no one ever divulges anything they have heard to anyone else. So you have to repeat the same things to doctors, nurses, ward boys, florists, plumbers and other mysterious people who drop in to ask you about your fascinating evacuation, voiding and flatus habits. I am also woken up and asked if I am still in a non-consanguineous marriage. Well, unless I have accidentally married a long lost cousin while in the throes of a childbirth-induced midnight delirium, I guess I am.
Anyway, in my five days in the hospital, I pick up these words like a pro. So when I hear a knock and a girl enters I launch into the by-now familiar litany. "I have evacuated, voided, and passed flatus multiple times," I tell the startled girl and as an additional bonus offer up some helpful nuggets of history that no one has ever thought to ask me, "Oh and I have been regurgitating regularly throughout my pregnancy, though i had no issues with sanguineous discharges. And talking about all things sanguineous, I am still in a non-consanguineous a marriage," I add for good measure.
The girl stammers, "Umm, I'm from the Nutrition Department and I just wanted to know what you'd like to eat."
Eat! I'm sure she has violated basic hospital protocol. At the very least, she ought to have asked me what I wanted to orally ingest into my abdominal cavity. But maybe she is new here. I look at her, my heart filling with newfound maternal compassion. Why, she's a mere babe in the clinical woods just learning to babble hospitalese! No matter little one, you'll soon learn!
Getting funnier by the day! Awesome!
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