There was a day nurse who spoke a little English. She came in and said, “This antibiotic very thick, thick and can close vein. So very important to clear after.” They always pushed saline after running the IV antibiotic because it was thick and sometimes had a hard time getting Read more…
There was this night nurse with quite the attitude. She was trying to move my legs, and every time anyone tried to move them, they’d just grab me by the heel. I’d say, “No, no, no, not by my foot. Move up higher. Grab from up higher.” But they didn’t Read more…
Friday came around—two days after my Wednesday surgery—and it was time for my first bandage change. The doctor came in with an assistant who didn’t speak any English. The doctor’s English was very, very broken. “Okay, we change,” he said. I was at the tail end of my pain medication Read more…
I kept asking for help with what I knew was going to become a problem. “Can I get some stool softener or a fiber drink or something? It’s been three days since I went, and I know it can get bad with all these pain meds.” “No, no, against policy. Read more…
On weekdays in the mornings, the doctors would do rounds. Usually five or six of them would file in around breakfast time and stand around the foot of my bed, staring at me. Then they’d start talking in French to each other—pointing, more French, gesturing. I’d just lie there watching, Read more…
My mornings started around 6 or 7 AM, depending on staff. Someone would come in asking, “What you want for breakfast?” “What are my choices?” “Coffee? Coffee or chocolate?” “Do you have tea?” “Tay? Yes.” So they’d bring me a soup bowl full of hot water and a Lipton tea Read more…
After they got me gowned and covered back up, they moved me from the surgical area to a regular room. Going down the hallway, I was watching the ceiling tiles, and I could see black mold on ceiling tile after ceiling tile. We didn’t take a straight path down the Read more…
Sometime in the morning, the surgical staff came in. One of them spoke pretty decent English, thankfully. “Okay, we do bath?” she asked. “Oh yeah, that would be great. I would love to have a bath.” I was thinking about how this would be my very first sponge bath experience— Read more…
I woke up from surgery around 10 PM the night before, and the nurse came in to explain my new reality. I was on morphine post-surgery, and they gave me a morphine drip button so I could control how much I wanted. She showed me how to use it through Read more…
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in a room. Looking to my right, I saw a big plate glass window into another room with a clock showing 10:10. “That can’t be right,” I thought. Looking down at my legs, I could see two sets of toes poking Read more…