photo credit: mtsofan via photopin cc
Why is the woman in this photograph so grouchy? You might be grouchy too in her shoes, wait…..make that crinkly blue booties. But maybe it’s not just the broken arm or the fetching cap or the beeping machines all around. Maybe there’s more—like the frowzy little flowered bottom-in-the-breeze, washed-within-an-inch-of-its-life hospital gown she is wearing. Ah yes, don’t we love to make fun of those. And we’ve all had to wear them at one time or another. (I know. All you younger friends of mine still in your salad days, you’ll have your turn.)
But wait Boomers….good news from the front lines of health care: the iconic hospital gown has been re-designed. Never mind that you’ll feel like you are being inducted into the Borg Collective (if you don’t know what that is, you are still in your salad days); it has two great things going for it: it’s purple, at least mine was, and it’s designed to blow warm air on you. This is significant. No more overworked nurses rushing around trying to keep you warm with heated blankets, this little doozy of an invention will keep warm air on your chest and on your tummy—all with a flexible hose attached to your purple gown somewhere south of your navel.
Will wonders never cease?
Apparently researchers have discovered that people about to have surgery, as I just did, do a lot better when they go into the surgery warm and relaxed.
I did experience a few moments of panic as my gown threatened to float up to the ceiling with me in it, but all in all it is a great improvement if you can avoid thinking of yourself as a particularly colorful blow fish.
So if you must have surgery anytime soon, rejoice people, the buzz is not about death panels anymore. We have warm air blowing on our nether regions. Things are looking up.
Postscript: Even though I have made a commitment not to overshare on my blog because we have enough of that already, I know my friends are going to want to know what I had to have surgery for. It was for my hand. It was major enough: a trapeziectomy to remove a small bone causing arthritic pain in my dominant hand and carpal tunnel release in that same hand. Ouch. Still waiting to play the guitar again. But on my refrigerator I keep this quote from the irreverent writer Augusten Burroughs who gave me the idea to do all my writing for months with my left hand. So, if you get a birthday card or something that looks like it came from a second grader, don’t worry that I’m experiencing early dementia. It’s just me. Growing more neurons.