Hospitals are wonderful places, aren’t they? Where else can you go where it is common practice to get jabbed with needles, be expected to expose yourself without question, and talk to highly educated people about the consistency of your poop? I say there is no other such place.

Now I realize that for many, hospital stays can mean the difference between life and death, but I’ve also found through my many experiences that hospital stays can also just be a real drag.

First of all, when I go to the hospital, I no longer expect to get good quality sleep. If you’ve ever spent time in hospitals, then you know what I’m talking about. The carts with the squeaking wheels moving up and down the halls at all hours, the intercom that seems to squawk something every ten minutes, and the janitors with the floor buffers whirling outside my door seem to grind my much needed rest into little ashy piles of soot that get blown away by frigid Yukon-like winds emanating from the arctic ventilation circle mounted in the ceiling above my bed.

Additionally, there are the middle-of-the-night-voices that also keep me from sleeping soundly, such as the chatty voices of nurses and clerks who don’t seem to have anything to do but talk. Then there are those occasional mournful voices of suffering patients crying for help. I often hear those voices floating up and down the halls, gently drifting in and out of rooms as if belonging to spirits of patients long since forgotten. It’s too bad for those poor souls when, strangely, their call buttons seem to quit working during the graveyard shift.

Another problem I have with hospitals is that they don’t put enough food in my meals. I’m sure the demand for hospital food doesn’t result in patients fighting amongst themselves for the delicacies they serve, and I know patients who, despite being unable to eat, are brought trays of food anyway, so why not offer seconds to those of us still hungry? Yes, I’m still hungry after eating since a serving of mystery meat is not much larger than a postage stamp.

Another problem I have with hospitals pertaining to food has to do with the ease and speed to which I am unsympathetically placed on a salt restricted diet. Have you ever had scrambled “hospital” eggs? Let me tell you, they “need” salt! Keeping that in mind, I sure would like to know how those “eggs” are made. Are they eggs at all? I mean they look like they were cooked while being churned through a hot hamburger grinder. Oh how figuring such puzzles helps to pass in-hospital time.

I have discovered that I might be put through some fairly unpleasant procedures while in the hospital. Take the colonoscopy for instance. I don’t care how dignified a person might believe himself to be, but once the preparation for such a procedure begins, dignity goes out the window.

When I had mine, I thought I would take the procedure ‘like a man’, with maturity, dignity and poise. But once I began drinking the ‘go-lytely’, I felt like a protesting-face-making six-year-old as my wife stood there saying, “You’re not getting up from there until you finish!” And, that’s just the preparation!

The next day, I found myself lying on my side on a gurney, surrounded by at least three men and two women, with my back side roughing up with goose bumps thanks to a chilly wind blowing across its vast hairy nakedness.

Unfortunately, sometimes one procedure can force the necessity of another procedure. You see, following that colonoscopy I developed the worse case of hemorrhoids that I have ever had. I suffered with them for five days before my doctors agreed to surgically remove them.

Now aside from its location, this (as you might guess) was a very different procedure. First of all, prior to my colonoscopy, the doctor didn’t actually look at the area to be scoped. Prior to the ‘roid removal procedure however, I was surprised to discover how willing and how interested at least eight different doctors were to look, discuss, and laugh at the size of my ‘roids. Let me tell you, bashful they weren’t. They spread my cheeks for me and everything!

Secondly, I was going to be under general anesthesia, meaning I was going to be put to sleep. I was glad of that, because I was only sedated during the colonoscopy that allowed me to feel some unpleasantness, and during this hemorrhoid removal surgery, they would actually be ‘cutting’ on a very sensitive (yet already painful) part of my body.

As I lay there on the gurney, I wondered how such a procedure would be performed. My question was answered after I surveyed the room. I noticed that the actual surgical bed had a huge mound of foam sitting on it in addition to a log like cushion. I figured I would be unflatteringly placed in a jack-knife position mooning God and everyone. I thought to myself, ‘I only thought my backside was showing during the colonoscopy’. That said, I can’t tell you how glad I was to be knocked out prior to my positioning.

Another problem I have with hospitals is IV pumps. They can be really annoying! That said, just one time I’d love to blast one of those beeping IV pumps to smithereens with a shotgun. In the hospital, they seem to love keeping me tethered to one at all times. Now I know getting fluids can be important, but it seems like the nurses forget that I do have a functional mouth and I can utilize it to swallow water! But what do they do? They hang a bag of saline the size of Rhode Island, set the pump at 50 milliliters per hour and expect me to live with dragging that dead weight in and out of the bathroom for the next 16 hours! It’s just plain ridiculous!

After seeing so many doctors, I’ve discovered that bedside manner is a direct reflection of their integrity as well as personality. That said, I am not impressed with doctors who are supposedly listening to my breathing when they quickly move the business end of the stethoscope from place to place on my back as if trying to trap a runaway Mexican jumping bean.

Finally, let me set the record straight by saying I am grateful to the staff employed at the hospital I use for taking such good care of me over the years. It remains a sad truth, however, that unavoidable discomforts will present themselves each time I’m a patient. I will, therefore, keep my past experiences in mind and be confident that hospital woes can most certainly be overcome.

Daniel Taverne is a disabled veteran living in Louisiana. View his blog at http://dtaverne.blogspot.com