Weird experience

[Chicken Little]

People in pain take drugs. People want to know what the pain is from, so they get XRAYS. Drugs prevent them from following directions and acting like they know what is going on. One size fits all for the clothes, even if you are pregnant. Outpatient XRAY is a study in sociology, as you have now experienced.

[malkin]

Often, people simply don't listen.

And people don't believe that general directions apply to them personally. Things like NO PARKING and "Please return your seat backs and tray tables to their upright position" are more honored in the breach than the observance.

[jessmarimba]

The hospital I stayed in was just rebuilt, since they needed larger beds and larger beds wouldn't fit through the doorways of the old building.

And I kind of enjoyed that the gowns were so large. I couldn't tie them behind me by myself so I wrapped them all the way around - more coverage

The weirdest experience for me was that my wing had an alarm system on the door so that patients with electronic anklets couldn't get out. I guess they sometimes get dementia patients in for long-term therapy but it sort of felt like I was imprisoned.

[Crankin]

Oh, well, I know that people don't listen. In my meager 2 years as a counseling intern with adults, I've seen it all. And I thought I had seen it all working with adolescents!
It was just a silly vent. Maybe they are used to people on pain drugs.

[Kathi]

I once had a PT tell me he liked massaging my back and hip because he could feel my bones, whereas, most people you can't get "through the fat".

I have the same experience with dressing gowns. I just had my mammogram and besides the gown wrapping around me 3 times, I had to roll the sleeves up just so I could use my hands to turn the magazine pages while I sat in the waiting room.

[OakLeaf]

Spend a couple of hours in the ER and you'll overhear a lot of what they have to deal with ... I wonder the opposite, if people who seem articulate and reasonably sane get the attention and explanation we need when we're really too dazed to make any decisions at all. And of course the X-ray techs have to deal with probably a disproportionate number of people sent over from the ER.

I can't believe they let me out of there without a neck X-ray. It's dawned on me gradually how very, very close I came to breaking my neck. I declined a CT of the head because the tech said it was for my jaw and orbit, which quite obviously were not broken. Whether or not I might have had an undisplaced fracture of C1 or C2, OTOH, was not at all obvious.

[tulip]

I would think that people who are getting X-rays are scared, in pain, and perhaps dazed because of some injury. I would not assume that they are all stupid, uneducated, imbeciles.

But hey, that's just my experience. The first time, I was a child with a potentially life-threatening disease. I was uneducated, having only completed the first grade. The second time, I was a teenager (okay, so yeah, imbecile counts there) with a broken ankle. The third time I was an adult with a broken toe that hurt so much and I was a bit embarrassed about how I broke it (fell into a pool at a funeral--long story). The fourth time was actually my husband who had cut his hand and had lost so much blood and passed out in the waiting room and nearly died and I pitched a fit and barged into any room that had a whitecoat in it. The fifth time I arrived by helicopter and was not conscious. The sixth time I was nearly passed out with pain from slamming my hand in a car door and I fainted and heaved.

None of the times were just out of curiosity about why something hurt. I think that's a luxury because most people go to get X-rayed because they have to.

[limewave]

The last time I had an x-ray, I was told for the first time--10 minutes earlier--that I probably had ovarian cancer. I needed surgery to hopefully remove the tumors and a full hysterectomy--in 4 days!!! I would need to take at least 6 months or more off of work. I wouldn't be able to drive or walk up stairs during that time. And DH had just proposed like a day earlier. Not only was I facing my own mortality, I was worried about how this was going to affect DH. Would he still want to marry me when I was going to have this mess going on and I wouldn't ever be able to have kids?

I'll stop rambling now, it just brought up a lot of memories I hadn't thought about in a while.

All that to say that I was a blubbery mess. I think I needed the xray technician help me change and get me on the x-ray table.