Weird experience

[Crankin]

OK, maybe I am just being silly, but this made me lose faith in the physical and mental ability of humans around here.
I went to get a hip x ray, so I can get PT. First, I go into the changing room, where I had to put on the blue scrubs, because my pants had a zipper. Now, I know they make one size fit all, but I could not believe the size of these things. I had to wrap the tie one and a half times around my body to get them to stay up. No joke, both DH and I could have fit in there, and maybe one of my grown sons. Then, I noticed about half the chairs were supersized; i.e., they were really the size of a love seat, but I know they were for one person.
OK, on to the actual x ray. I was greeted by, "Wow, why are you here?" by the tech, after he verified my identity... He asked if I had had a trauma to my hip. I said no, that I was a cyclist and x country skier and that it has been bothering me more and more during activity for about a year. So, then when he asked me to put my toes together for the x ray (like a snowplow in skiing) he was amazed that 1) I understood the directions and 2) that I could do it. He was even surprised I could verify which hip hurt me, saying that most people can't.
I don't want to sound "virtuous" compared to others, but the two things together (the abundance of huge people and the lack of people's ability to understand directions), were quite distressing to me. I live in a community where 70-80 percent of the people have college and/or graduate degrees and there seem to be an awful lot of active people around here. Maybe they go into Boston for a routine x-ray, so the local hospital never sees them?
It was just depressing.

[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.

[Biciclista]

I don't recollect any time having been on the xray table where I impressed anyone by knowing what body part I had that needed xrayed. Perhaps the xray tech was just so impressed with you that they let it flow through the entire interaction?

ps I had a dental technician tell me she loved working on my teeth because my CHEEKS were so thin they didn't get in the way!

[lph]

Oh lord. Not to belabour the point, but it reminded me - the only time I've gotten an x-ray anywhere except at the dentists was when my elbow was dislocated. I was a moaning, selfcentered hyperventilating mess, and could barely tell where I was, let alone make sense of what anybody was saying to me. I guess I have a pretty pathetic pain threshold.

(but when they pulled it back - boom, all better. Amazing, just amazing.)

[jessmarimba]

Ooh I did just remember (along the lines of being uncooperative with medical technicians) - when I was rolled in for my CT scan after my wreck, the lady asked me to move from my bed to the table without help. I looked at her like she was crazy (I had just come in duct-taped to a board with a back injury!) and she just glared right back. So I did it anyway. I think she was in too much of a hurry to get a second person to help transfer me.

[GLC1968]

I've had too many xrays to count (and yet I've never actually broken a bone!) but I do remember one situation in particular.

I had been in a car accident (a woman ran a stop sign and plowed right into me as I was moving at bout 35 mph). As a result, I was strapped to a back board with a neck brace and all the other precautions. I'd been waiting a long time because there was some other bad accident that night and the e-room was slammed. They rolled me into the x-ray room and I sat there for awhile, strapped to the gurney, alone. Eventually a couple of techs came in and I was begging them to let me up to pee. I had to go when I'd left the office 4 hours earlier but didn't want to have to go back in to the building and ride the elevator back up to my floor, so I figured I'd hold it. HUGE mistake.

Anyway, I was begging to go pee and when they clearly wouldn't comply, I started begging for a bed pan. I swear that they all thought I was insane but I was in so much pain (and not from the accident)!

I still ended up having to wait over an hour for a doctor to release me even after they were done. When I finally did get to pee, it was such a relief that I started crying while on the toilet.

[GLC1968]

Crankin - to your original point though, there is something to it. I saw my OB-Gyn a few months back and when he asked how I was doing and I said 'great' he looked at me kind of funny. I'd just lost 25 lbs, I was fit, I had no problems, I was on no birth control at all and I'd just had a clear mamogram. When he didn't respond right away, I asked "are you wondering why I'm even here?" and he kind of laughed and then said well no, it's just that hearing that everything is fine is so rare that it caught him off guard!

While the general public is getting unhealthier, I'm sure it's even more pronounced for the medical field where most people only go in when there is already something wrong, you know?

[Tri Girl]

when I had my ultrasound (they were seeing if I had appendicitis) I was so drugged up and out of it, I'm sure I acted like a loon. They wheeled me up and asked if I was allergic to iodine. Not being in my right frame of mind, I got mixed up and said "yes" (even tho it's not iodine I'm allergic to, it's chlorhexidine- which since I said I was allergic to iodine they used chlorhexidine during surgery and I had a HORRIBLE allergic reaction to it ALL over my torso).
I should never answer important questions while under the influence of heavy narcotics, that's for sure.

Anyway- I, too, was a nutcase. I can only imagine the people they have to work with. Poor saps.


But yes, that's a very weird experience.