When I was a kid hospital staff gave me lollipops and smiles and kindness. Now as an adult they give me no sugary treats, scornful frowns and attitude. And all I did to deserve it was get older. I feel like I'm being punished for something I can't even control.
First they make you sit in a big waiting room where everyone pretends that no one else is around, busily reading or looking at their mobile phone ... and then there's the odd one that just stares right through you. After about an hour in here you proceed to another waiting room, smaller in size, uncomfortably close to that person who is STILL staring at you. It is here that you are met with an impatient staffer who processes your short stay and takes your money.
Your humanity slowly slips away from your own eyes as they cattle prod you into a third waiting room: the prep room. You're made to change out of your clothes and into a gown. Here everyone is sitting closer together, in gowns, still ignoring each other, except that ONE guy who won't stop staring at you!
The transition to a scene that looks similar to something from Auschwitz is almost complete as bossy nurses hurriedly take your blood pressure and ask about your dietary habits for the last 24 hours - clear fluids - you're starving! Hurry the hell up!
Yippee! You finally get your own bed with a curtain drawn around it. But it's a hard bed ... and it's cold, like morgue slab cold. Is that for any particular reason? Does it make it easier to pack you away should they kill you during your operation? Panic sets in.
Next the mortician, sorry, nurse, arrives and wheels you down a sterile, lifeless hall into an equally banal operating theatre. Other nurses are busily prepping themselves and none of them even bother to acknowledge your existence ... well, that's where I drew the line (and probably paid a price for it later): "Hi! Hello? How are you? My name's Chris. YOU might be used to this environment but I'm not so how about making me feel a bit more welcome."
"Oh sorry." One of them pipes up. "Hello". And that's it ... that's all these faux nazis could offer.
Finally the Anaesthetist arrives to put you out of your misery. He appears to have taken his fair dose of personal chemistry for the day as he slurs his speech, smiles calmly and asks YOU to relax ... oh yeah, you're in good hands now. He jabs a needle into you and slowly you drift off, away, sooooo faaaaaar awaaaaaay ....
"Oh Shit!"
Aggggh!
Your eyes break open and you hear yourself scream as you burst free of their anaesthetic coma for a few seconds and feel something very painful and foreign in your anus. Frightened, you wonder, why did he just say "oh shit!"? That CANNOT be good.
"You'll be ok" says the nurse reassuringly. Finally, a sign of humanity! There is ho ... and you're out again.
You wake up in a room with beeps and moans and so many deep turbulant farts sounding off around you that for a moment you think your in a harbour surrounded by tugboats and cruise ships. The nurses impatiently wake you. Hurry up, more cattle to come through yet. You get a sandwich and a drink. It's great. Best part of the whole experience. Prove to them that you can pee. And then you leave ... hoping never to see them again.
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