Originally published on Oct 21, 2017. This is Part 3 of a 5-part series.
Read Part 1 or Part 2 here for context.
There are 3 details you need DON’T need to know about our stay at the Hospital. These details come in increasing TMI-ratings.
You have been warned.
#1: At the Genesis center, the nearest bathroom to where Mae is staying, is located right in front of the nurses station. So the moment you step out of the bathroom, you see the nurses and they see you.
#2: My morning routine at the hospital so far has been to wake up from our room, go down to the Genesis Center, greet Mae a good morning. Go down to have breakfast, then go back up to Genesis with Mae again.
#3: I have been blessed with predictable bowel movement. It’s always one within 2 hours of waking up, or within one hour of having breakfast. I stay in the bathroom for about 10 minutes.
Put these 3 details together, and I believe the nurses already know exactly: who’s going to go in, when and where, what he will be doing, and for how long.
Then he will come out, avoiding eye contact.
2. The Genesis Center being a birthing unit, it’s understandable that 90% of the people including the patients are women.
There have been days that I knew that I was the only person who used the bathroom, because the toilet seat remained in the upward position from morning till night.
3a. Pregnancy increases the frequency of constipation in some women. So the nurses here also frequently ask when their patient’s last bowel movement was, as if it was like small talk.
As a result, we also started paying more attention to it. We observed a pattern that Mae’s digestive system had a nurse of choice. That whenever it was ‘Nurse M’ who was attending to us, that day would be a ‘success’.
It came to a point that whenever we would see ‘Nurse M’, Mae and I would grin at each other and know what’s going to happen soon.
3b. In one of the bulletin boards here at Asian Hospital, they post patient testimonials that praise specific nurses.
I wonder if they would accept our praise for ‘Nurse M’…
“Nurse M is gifted. Whenever I see her, I already know it’s going to be a good day. She makes me comfortable enough to poop. Her record so far was 5 out of 6 ‘success’ days.”
4a. There are signs here inside Genesis that the area is sterile.
I wonder, can farting make an area un-sterile?
4b. Mae likes it when I write these “Random Thoughts”, as it helps her keep her sanity.
I confess though that I have been procrastinating writing them.
All I have been giving her are my random utots1.
…
5 In keeping with our 3 rules, every night, a line in our prayers go like this: “Lord, please give us the strength to do our best in the things we can control”.
Now if a day was particularly long and driving us insane… we would add the words… “please give us the strength, emotionally and psychologically to do our best….”
And if a day was tiring, then we would pray “please give us the strength physically to do our best… ”
Last night, the night before our scheduled delivery date at the hospital we prayed:
“Lord, please give us the strength, physically, emotionally, psychologically and vaginally… “
Read Part 4 of this series here.
Footnotes:
1 – Random utots – utot means a fart, with a play on the word random thought.