About 3 days ago, I posted an entry about Visiting.
Visiting 101.
And I felt just terrible after. As if I had sharpened my wit at some poor soul's expense. Well, yes, it WAS all quasi true but it was not one specific action, or person. It was inspired by a true story...
I confess, at times, an action I found reprehensible in one person was completely acceptable in another. Like the eating thing. BUT I knew also that I could never truly satisfy my vanity by sharing my blog because I was too afraid someone would see themselves.
yes, well, that lasted until 6:03 pm this evening.
From: "betty"
Sent: Saturday, March 10, 2007 6:02 PM
To: "my email"
Subject: (no subject)
Hi
I was sorry to hear you are bedridden for the rest of your pregnancy! That sucks! Now is probably a good time to figure out a way to make money on the internet or something you can do online. Maybe take up a craft, crocheting , or scrapbooking for the baby? Let me know if there is anything I can help with, or tell Barbara** and we will take care of it. I know how you feel, I had placenta privia with my daughter and could not do anything. With my son it was worse and was in the hospital at least 4 times a week with ultrasounds and other wonderful tests. Hang in there the end result is well worth the effort.
Talk to ya soon!
"Betty"
Just for a minute I wanted to reply…
Dear Betty,
Thanks so much for your email. It sounds like you have lots of great ideas for how I should spend my time! And here I was thinking about resting and taking it easy… Especially knowing that a preemie is on the way and we’ll need strength for that. Lazy lazy!
You are so right that I should take lemons and turn them into lemonade. If I’m just going to sit on my ass, at a minimum I should try to engage in some productive activity that fuels the economy. Needless consumerism generating at home clutter is JUST the ticket and I think scrapbooking is the perfect solution.
Whew. Additionally, I’m so glad you know “how I feel”. I had not realized that you were hospitalized during your pregnancies and on bedrest for 11 weeks out of the 21 you “knew” you were pregnant. It’s not often I meet other people who have also spent almost 50% of their pregnancies laying down so I’m glad to have a confidant. I’ll have to ask you sometime how you coped with losing one of the two pregnancies that implanted, your ER visits and if you also got Ambian for your nightmares! I can only imagine going to the Dr. 4 times a week - that sucks! I’m lucky that I have in room monitoring every four hours and can just take a wheelchair to my appointments. Remind me not to look that gift horse in the mouth!
Anyway, enough about me, right? I can’t thank you enough for getting in touch these 40 days after I was placed on strict bedrest with your terrific ideas. I’m just sad that you won’t be going through some sort of surgery yourself so I can return the favor. You know what though; you’ve given me a great idea! I know a guy that just had hip surgery, and I bet he’d love this type of advice. Why don’t I give you his home number, his cell number and his personal email and you guys can touch base! I won’t tell him though – he could use the surprise. (Besides, the doctor says not to “baby” his hip. I’m sure getting up and down for the phone will be good for him, just like therapy…)
Well, I’m off. Times a’ wasting. I’m going to check out amazon.com to see if they deliver craft supplies.
Take care!
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Thursday, March 8, 2007
via email ~ Dr Appt Update - do not fwd
Hi, just wanted to give you an update.
We had our 2nd ffn and another u/s today. The ffn was negative. That’s a huge indicator that we will not likely go into labor in these next two weeks. Further, my c*rv*x is still at .5mm!
Translation? While it’s still just as serious, today’s news is that we’ve had no setbacks, we have a negative ffn and Baby B is growing! Measuring at 1lb14oz, just shy of the 2lbs that dramatically increases the survival odds.
We had the best possible outcome we could get in a visit at this juncture.
The other good news is that my sister Michelle bought me a perfect long sleeve maternity hooded sweatshirt and I’m not wearing the same clothes as I always do! Yippee!
I’m attaching a fairly cute pic of 24 weeks – which you all saw – and then me today at 26. I look like the US magazine “stars without makeup” issue. In my defense, it’s hard to dry your hair lying down!
(the 24 weeks is the day I was admitted – for comparisons sake!)
We had our 2nd ffn and another u/s today. The ffn was negative. That’s a huge indicator that we will not likely go into labor in these next two weeks. Further, my c*rv*x is still at .5mm!
Translation? While it’s still just as serious, today’s news is that we’ve had no setbacks, we have a negative ffn and Baby B is growing! Measuring at 1lb14oz, just shy of the 2lbs that dramatically increases the survival odds.
We had the best possible outcome we could get in a visit at this juncture.
The other good news is that my sister Michelle bought me a perfect long sleeve maternity hooded sweatshirt and I’m not wearing the same clothes as I always do! Yippee!
I’m attaching a fairly cute pic of 24 weeks – which you all saw – and then me today at 26. I look like the US magazine “stars without makeup” issue. In my defense, it’s hard to dry your hair lying down!
(the 24 weeks is the day I was admitted – for comparisons sake!)
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Politically Correct Chick Parts
Incompetent
Main Entry: in•com•pe•tent
Pronunciation: in-käm-pə-tənt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French incompétent, from in- + compétent competent
Date: 1595
1: not legally qualified
2: inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose
3 a: lacking the qualities needed for effective action b: unable to function properly
www.miriam-webster.com
Incompetent cervix. That’s what it’s called when your cervix is “too weak to stay closed during a pregnancy” “abnormally liable to dilate”.
An Incompetent Cervix.
Which seems, you know, unnecessarily cruel. I mean, yes, things aren’t working out but there’s no need for name calling. I’m sure at one time or another; we’ve all dropped the ball. How would you like to be referred to as the Incompetent Bookkeeper? Or the Incompetent Child Care Specialist? It's not really performance inspiring now, is it?
If I was the cervix I’d be so demotivated. Day after day hearing people refer to you as Incompetent. People blaming you, decrying you, measuring you then clucking over your inadequacy. Why go on, really?
My doctor referred to it the other day instead as “Insufficient”. Which was sort of nice. It feels much more sympathetic. Like a break-up.
“It’s not you, it’s me. You’d be a great cervix for someone else. We just aren’t meeting each others needs”
Main Entry: in•com•pe•tent
Pronunciation: in-käm-pə-tənt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle French incompétent, from in- + compétent competent
Date: 1595
1: not legally qualified
2: inadequate to or unsuitable for a particular purpose
3 a: lacking the qualities needed for effective action b: unable to function properly
www.miriam-webster.com
Incompetent cervix. That’s what it’s called when your cervix is “too weak to stay closed during a pregnancy” “abnormally liable to dilate”.
An Incompetent Cervix.
Which seems, you know, unnecessarily cruel. I mean, yes, things aren’t working out but there’s no need for name calling. I’m sure at one time or another; we’ve all dropped the ball. How would you like to be referred to as the Incompetent Bookkeeper? Or the Incompetent Child Care Specialist? It's not really performance inspiring now, is it?
If I was the cervix I’d be so demotivated. Day after day hearing people refer to you as Incompetent. People blaming you, decrying you, measuring you then clucking over your inadequacy. Why go on, really?
My doctor referred to it the other day instead as “Insufficient”. Which was sort of nice. It feels much more sympathetic. Like a break-up.
“It’s not you, it’s me. You’d be a great cervix for someone else. We just aren’t meeting each others needs”
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Visiting 101
I think I'm going to start a bedrest handbook.
Chapter One - Visiting Tips
TIP ONE - USING THE PHONE
If you are going to visit the hospital, please call and tell the "patient" when you are going to come.
TIP TWO - FIGURE OUT AN APPROXIMATE WINDOW OF TIME
Try to avoid calling at 9am on Saturday before you start your day of whirlwind errands and tossing off "I’m thinking of coming to see you today" and then:
a) never showing up
b) showing up 7 hours after you called and assuming that the first call was sufficient notice.
A nurse explained this phenomenon to me. Something happens when you are in the hospital. People know you can't go anywhere so they don’t observe the same courtesies as if they were coming to your house. If you are going to visit, call, and try to pinpoint a time.
c) showing up between appts and telling said patient how "busy" you were today and said patient was squeezed in
Believe me, the patient knows you are busy. He or she was likely busy too before s/he were admitted. Chances are they s/he isn’t in the hospital for a lobotomy and s/he both gets the effort you made to come in and doesn’t need to be reminded of your supreme sacrifice.
TIP THREE - USING THE PHONE #2
Even if you DID pick a time, call from downstairs when you get there anyway. Your patient may be hooked up to something, in the bathroom, whatever and needs time to adjust. That tiny little tap on the door you make before you push the door open just doesn't cut it.
TIP FOUR - FINE DINING
Like most Americans, you probably can't go anywhere without food. Yes, it's been almost an hour since you have had access to food. God forbid one doesn't eat at every social gathering. Maybe you were rushing to get there and you were so "busy" you didn't eat? There is something positively Pavlovian about a hospital. "Oh a visit? We should eat."
DON'T.
Unless you called, see #'s 1 and 3 above, and the patient said "sure".
DON'T bring your dinner. DON'T walk in chirping “oh I haven’t eaten yet” and then proceed to unpack your paper take-out sack. DON'T place your food on the radiator, chair, tray table, foot of the bed, then proceed to feast like the last supper all the while talking. You do know that from the laying down position, most mouths are eye level? I assure you, the patient is not interested in seeing the food rolling in your mouth, or hearing you talk through it.
TIP FIVE - SANITATION ENGINEER
If you must eat or throw away the take-out that you ate BEFORE you came, your coffee cup, etc., DON'T throw your trash in the rooms trash. For most patients, trash is emptied once a day. In the morning. Whatever you throw away, the patient is going to smell for the next 12 hours.
TIP SIX - SANITATION EXPERT
There should be hand sanitizer near your patient's room door. Use it. There are germs are over you, your hands, your clothes, the elevator buttons you pushed to walk in the room, the handle on the door you opened to walk in. Likely that guy from Oprah could do the cotton swab test on you and you'd be rife with feces. You are one big nasty germ and the patient is the Iran Hostage to your Typhoid Mary.
TIP SEVEN - SHIRLEY TEMPLE AUDITIONS ARE NOT BEING HELD IN THE HALL
Keep your kids with you. The kitchen isn't a field trip, the halls aren't a track meet, and the cavernous hallways are not for your little darlings dulcet tones. No matter how cute your kid is, some other patient already hates him.
TIP EIGHT - GIFT BAGS ARE NOT GRAB BAGS subtitled HOSPITAL ROOMS ARENT RUMMAGE SALES
Try not to rifle through the patients things. Things in the patient’s room belong to them, and just because limited space necessitates that those items are on display, it doesn’t mean they are for your consumption or your perusal. Get well cards, gift bags, closets, bathrooms and bedside drawers are off limits. And lord knows, you're hungry right? Ask before you eat their snacks.
TIP NINE – THIS ISN’T A POPULARITY CONTEST
Does it really matter to you who else has come up to visit? Ask yourself why.
TIP TEN – ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
If you normally demonstrate your care by expressing an interest through a series of questions, never is this a more inappropriate time. Questions such as “What did the Dr say” or “Do they (the ubiquitous “they”) know why this happened?” Inevitably, these questions lead to one of two scenarios:
1. the patient is forced to relive his or her appointments, medical history, prognosis and feelings about said prognosis to satisfy your curiosity (I’m fairly certain the patient already is aware of all this information so the sole purpose of repeating it is because you either nosy, or too lazy to look it up on the internet)
2. the patient is forced to listen to your subsequent platitudes as to “gods will”, “everything will work out” and “everything happens for a reason” or some derivative there of
And finally, the answer to “Do they know why this happened?”
Yes. They do. It’s because the patient is a bad person.
TIP ELEVEN – WWYD
The patient will not likely care What You Would Do. Try to avoid dispensing advice that begins with “If I were in your situation…”. While it’s highly unlikely that you are going to be in the same exact situation, it is fairly likely that your life experiences, personality, and general attitude are going to be dramatically different. The patient will not find your speculating interesting but will instead likely offer to trade spaces to give you the opportunity to display your poise and control over the situation.
And finally (and my personal favorite)
TIP TWELVE – BORED GAMES
The patient will be sorry to hear in any variation how bored you’d be if it were you. The patient wants to assume that you are bright. If you choose to profess the fact that you are neither self-aware enough nor self-entertaining enough to occupy your own mind, the patient is not likely to find you very interesting either. hances are, if the patient is in the hospital for any length of time, it’s fairly serious. And “being bored” is the furthest thing from their mind.
Chapter One - Visiting Tips
TIP ONE - USING THE PHONE
If you are going to visit the hospital, please call and tell the "patient" when you are going to come.
TIP TWO - FIGURE OUT AN APPROXIMATE WINDOW OF TIME
Try to avoid calling at 9am on Saturday before you start your day of whirlwind errands and tossing off "I’m thinking of coming to see you today" and then:
a) never showing up
b) showing up 7 hours after you called and assuming that the first call was sufficient notice.
A nurse explained this phenomenon to me. Something happens when you are in the hospital. People know you can't go anywhere so they don’t observe the same courtesies as if they were coming to your house. If you are going to visit, call, and try to pinpoint a time.
c) showing up between appts and telling said patient how "busy" you were today and said patient was squeezed in
Believe me, the patient knows you are busy. He or she was likely busy too before s/he were admitted. Chances are they s/he isn’t in the hospital for a lobotomy and s/he both gets the effort you made to come in and doesn’t need to be reminded of your supreme sacrifice.
TIP THREE - USING THE PHONE #2
Even if you DID pick a time, call from downstairs when you get there anyway. Your patient may be hooked up to something, in the bathroom, whatever and needs time to adjust. That tiny little tap on the door you make before you push the door open just doesn't cut it.
TIP FOUR - FINE DINING
Like most Americans, you probably can't go anywhere without food. Yes, it's been almost an hour since you have had access to food. God forbid one doesn't eat at every social gathering. Maybe you were rushing to get there and you were so "busy" you didn't eat? There is something positively Pavlovian about a hospital. "Oh a visit? We should eat."
DON'T.
Unless you called, see #'s 1 and 3 above, and the patient said "sure".
DON'T bring your dinner. DON'T walk in chirping “oh I haven’t eaten yet” and then proceed to unpack your paper take-out sack. DON'T place your food on the radiator, chair, tray table, foot of the bed, then proceed to feast like the last supper all the while talking. You do know that from the laying down position, most mouths are eye level? I assure you, the patient is not interested in seeing the food rolling in your mouth, or hearing you talk through it.
TIP FIVE - SANITATION ENGINEER
If you must eat or throw away the take-out that you ate BEFORE you came, your coffee cup, etc., DON'T throw your trash in the rooms trash. For most patients, trash is emptied once a day. In the morning. Whatever you throw away, the patient is going to smell for the next 12 hours.
TIP SIX - SANITATION EXPERT
There should be hand sanitizer near your patient's room door. Use it. There are germs are over you, your hands, your clothes, the elevator buttons you pushed to walk in the room, the handle on the door you opened to walk in. Likely that guy from Oprah could do the cotton swab test on you and you'd be rife with feces. You are one big nasty germ and the patient is the Iran Hostage to your Typhoid Mary.
TIP SEVEN - SHIRLEY TEMPLE AUDITIONS ARE NOT BEING HELD IN THE HALL
Keep your kids with you. The kitchen isn't a field trip, the halls aren't a track meet, and the cavernous hallways are not for your little darlings dulcet tones. No matter how cute your kid is, some other patient already hates him.
TIP EIGHT - GIFT BAGS ARE NOT GRAB BAGS subtitled HOSPITAL ROOMS ARENT RUMMAGE SALES
Try not to rifle through the patients things. Things in the patient’s room belong to them, and just because limited space necessitates that those items are on display, it doesn’t mean they are for your consumption or your perusal. Get well cards, gift bags, closets, bathrooms and bedside drawers are off limits. And lord knows, you're hungry right? Ask before you eat their snacks.
TIP NINE – THIS ISN’T A POPULARITY CONTEST
Does it really matter to you who else has come up to visit? Ask yourself why.
TIP TEN – ENQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW
If you normally demonstrate your care by expressing an interest through a series of questions, never is this a more inappropriate time. Questions such as “What did the Dr say” or “Do they (the ubiquitous “they”) know why this happened?” Inevitably, these questions lead to one of two scenarios:
1. the patient is forced to relive his or her appointments, medical history, prognosis and feelings about said prognosis to satisfy your curiosity (I’m fairly certain the patient already is aware of all this information so the sole purpose of repeating it is because you either nosy, or too lazy to look it up on the internet)
2. the patient is forced to listen to your subsequent platitudes as to “gods will”, “everything will work out” and “everything happens for a reason” or some derivative there of
And finally, the answer to “Do they know why this happened?”
Yes. They do. It’s because the patient is a bad person.
TIP ELEVEN – WWYD
The patient will not likely care What You Would Do. Try to avoid dispensing advice that begins with “If I were in your situation…”. While it’s highly unlikely that you are going to be in the same exact situation, it is fairly likely that your life experiences, personality, and general attitude are going to be dramatically different. The patient will not find your speculating interesting but will instead likely offer to trade spaces to give you the opportunity to display your poise and control over the situation.
And finally (and my personal favorite)
TIP TWELVE – BORED GAMES
The patient will be sorry to hear in any variation how bored you’d be if it were you. The patient wants to assume that you are bright. If you choose to profess the fact that you are neither self-aware enough nor self-entertaining enough to occupy your own mind, the patient is not likely to find you very interesting either. hances are, if the patient is in the hospital for any length of time, it’s fairly serious. And “being bored” is the furthest thing from their mind.
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