Friday, June 15, 2007

Frozen treats

I went to the hospital last night. This could only happen to a very special person:

My back has been acting up a lot lately, so every day I use (as directed) an ice pack. Well, apparently my freezer went into hyperdrive and one part of the icepack was super-cooled, because when i was done with the ice pack, I had a patch of frostbite on my lower back. The skin was all hard and waxy and completely numb. I have never had frostbite before, but since I lived in Minnesota, I knew what to do. So I ran warm (Not hot! Warm.) water all over it for 20 minutes. I had heard that as the patch was thawing, the pain and burning would set in, and it did. It stung quite a bit, but it was not unbearable.

Anyway, I knew it was superficial frostbite and that I would not have permanent tissue damage, but I also know that frostbite is not something to mess around with and that it should be taken very seriously, so I thought I'd better have it checked out just to be on the safe side.

In the emergency room, the old woman in the next curtain was having a bowel obstruction and was apparently sitting on a toilet, because she became very excited when she, and I quote, "passed some really hard ones."

Two curtains down another old woman was in for complication from a stent in her groin (people do not feel the need to speak quietly in hospitals, apparently). The nurse thought it would be appropriate to make a joke:
Nurse: Ok, I need to check out the area, so you need to take off your pants.
Old woman: OK
Nurse: Ooh, nice bikini wax! Or did you get that shaved when they put in the stent?

Nice. But the old woman's husband said to his wife, "How come all she has to do is ask and you take off your pants for her?" Ha.

Anyway, the doctor said my frostbite was no big deal, just like a 1st degree burn. But since I cannot ice my back for a while, he prescribed Vicodin.

It was 92 degrees yesterday, and I got frostbite.

2 Comments:

At 8:44 PM, Anonymous Anonymous posited...

Vicodin is much better than frostbite!

 
At 1:14 AM, Blogger Vinnie-Senza posited...

Oh Wanninger - you can do anything if you set your mind to it. Just like getting frostbite in the middle of summer!

 

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