It’s been a tough week. I have suffered from lower back problems linked to my triple scoliosis and to the diastasis recti (separation of the abdominal muscles) inflicted upon my erstwhile athletic form by childbirth, but I was unaware that the piling on of menopausal pounds and stress would bring things to a breaking point. Many discoveries were made Easter Sunday: that a heated tile floor can help you hanging on from crying out to the kids until daylight breaks; that my youngest daughter is grace under pressure; that EMTs cannot fit stretchers in powder rooms; that fentanyl is used medically and should last no more than 3 minutes by which time you should be in ambulance; that EMTs cannot leave you until you are under supervision of a nurse; that EMTs have a limit to how many painkillers they can give you; that staying on a stretcher in a hallway for 7 hours is a given in Canada; that writhing in pain is encouraged by your EMT whose name you now know (my profound gratitude Stefan Smida) in order to get nurses attention; that you may be taken to a room dubbed “the closet” because it had been one until the day before; that you may then discover a treasure trove of wonderful humans called nurses (or Stephanie); that Gravol is nearly as good as Dilaudid which is eight times more powerful than morphine; that cat scans don’t do the entire trick that MRIs do; that you’re so old hat being in the second ambulance to the second hospital in under 12 hours that you wince for them to turn the music up and they do; that my spine is ok; that muscle relaxants will do the trick with added physio; that hospitals discharge patients in terrible pain when they know you have a better rate of survival at home; that all pretense of being desirable evaporates the moment your partner walks you to the bathroom and lowers your loose fluffy pjs to sit you on the toilet; that when you ask for a shower he brings in a garden chair to “hose you down”; that simple tasks may take longer; that putting on makeup was more important than drying my hair for my first and only out of bed zoom meeting; mostly though? Bad memories fade when new ones are made.
