I Second That Emotion

As promised, here is the squeamish medical story for women. It actually has two points - the squeamish point and then...well you'll see.

This happened about 17 years ago. I lived in Phoenix at the time and was speaking to my mother on the phone. She was telling me about a friend of the family who was in the hospital. The friend was at the time about 35-38 years old and was kind of a large woman. Not grossly obese, but large in stature and weight.

Apparently she was exercising on her stationary bike at her home when the seat broke off backwards and she......yes gals, she fell onto the metal post that had once held the seat.



Let's all take a moment to say it together - OUCH!

Are you holding yourself? I would understand if you are. I did when I first heard this.

As you can imagine she began bleeding or actually hemorrhaging would be the better word. She worked in the medical field and knew enough to apply pressure so she moved to the wooden dining chair all the while screaming for her husband who was asleep.

It took awhile to wake him, but finally he did and called an amublance, etc.

In emergency surgery they reported it punctured her bladder, part of her colon and did some damage to her uterus. She was fortunate that it missed her kidneys. It took a long recovery time, but she is fine. In fact I worked with her at the hospital for years. Her only lasting effect is bowel control due to the colon damage. She has to wear adult diapers forever.

Now for the other part - At the time my mother was telling me this I of course was commenting how lucky she really was, etc. My mother says "yes she'll probably never have control of her bowels, but that is better than losing a kidney - and of course, she'll be unable to service her husband for a long time."

WTF?

I could go on about how I scolded her for using such an archiac demeaning phrase for women, but if you know me at all you know I didn't let that go by unmentioned.

And if you knew my mother, you would know that it probably did no good.