I've been to diversity training. Multiple times. I sit through day-long meetings frequently. I survived 8th grade geography with "Borin'" Gaughran. I've been to the middle of North Dakota. But on the boredom scale all of those pale in comparison to the week I spent in traction a week before my 13th birthday.
That would be the summer of '82. I had my first real job: a paper route so I could save money for a Panasonic boombox. Little League was in full swing, so to speak. At the end of that June, near the conclusion of a week of confirmation camp for my church that was dominated more by hormones and puberty than the bible, I felt a twinge in my hip. To make a long blog short, within days my hip was in excruciating pain, my spine was curved, I could barely move, and the doctor prescribed traction in the hospital. This was the initial onset of my rheumatoid arthritis, except the doctors didn't know that yet but that story is for another day.
For those who don't know what traction is, think of it as an HMO-approved torture device. You lie on your back and they attach weights to booties which go on your feet. It's not a heavy weight, so the real pain is that you can't move. For days. The doctors couldn't tell if my hip was screwing up my back or vice versa, so I think they flipped a coin and it came up "back."
So let's review the bidding: it's the summer of '82. No internet. No iPods. Walkmans existed but I didn't have one. Cable TV existed but it was not ubiquitous in institutional settings. So what electronic entertainment did I have? Channels 2, 4, 5, 9, and 11. That, and books. Even the utter boredom of the hospital couldn't drive me to watch soap operas, and I was well past Sesame Street age for channel 2, so that left time-tested reruns on local channel 9. I watched more Laverne and Shirley that week than I care to discuss. Squiggy, c'mon man. Daytime TV still gives me the willies and is the best thing for getting me back in the office when I'm ill.
Imagine being on your back for a week with almost nothing to do. Diversity training starts to look good about now, right? It's not like my hospital room cohabitants were providing any witty repartee. The first kid had given himself 3rd degree burns trying to clean his matchbox cars with gasoline and, apparently, an open flame. He wasn't horribly disfigured so I can now get away with saying he was probably my first encounter with a future Darwin Award winner. And I don't think his folks got Parents of the Year that year, either. Just guessin.' The second kid had some kind of fetal-position-inducing (in me) procedure done on his (little) man region that his dad had to explain in a serious monotone. That kid never said much of anything, nor would I if I thought opening my mouth might have invited inquiries into my predicament.
There were only two episodes of notable excitement that week. The first was when they wheeled me downstairs for something called an arthrogram. ("Ooooh! I'm getting out of the room!") A medical textbook will tell you that an arthrogram is a procedure where a physician can look inside a joint with an inserted camera. I will tell you that it is an ordeal where the doctor sticks three giant needles right into your hip and digs around like he's looking for his Audi keys. For 30 minutes. Without anesthetic. "Maybe I left them here. Or here. Or here." I still consider that more painful than any of the kidney stones I've had. (I'm a medical marvel, ain't I?)
The second incident of note was the day when a nurse burst in and declared loud enough to be heard all the way in Hopkins, "Mr. Carl, we note that you haven't had a bowel movement in several days. I'll need to give you this suppository." At the tender age of nearly-13 I was wise enough to know where a suppository ends up. Right at that moment I needed an Ed McMahon-type sidekick to provide a "Heyyyy-ohhhhhh!" I announced confidently that I could produce some war materiel right then and there (ok, I didn't use that phrase at the time but it fits), shucked the traction booties in nanoseconds, hobbled to the bathroom before the nurse could offer a rebuttal, and set to work like my life depended on it. Which, at that age, it seemed like it did since dying of embarrassment is a real pre-teen affliction. Fortunately my intestinal tract came through for me.
Other than those heart-stopping moments it was an endless cycle of cheesy re-runs, staring out the window at summer going by, reading books ("The Bourne Identity" was one, then I had to wait 20 years for the movie), and hospital food. I remember my mom gamely trying to raise my spirits before arriving at the hospital by telling me that hospital food was great and they let you pick what you want from a menu! I later learned what every adult knew: everything tasted the same regardless of what color it was. Nice try, though, Mom.
After exactly one week to the minute from my arrival I was discharged from the Big House in a wheelchair. I bid farewell to Nurse Suppository and Gasoline Boy and Unspeakable Procedure Boy and 3-Needles of Death Doctor and Laverne and Shirley and Lenny and Squiggy and an electrically adjustable bed that gets much less interesting after 30 minutes, much less 7 days. Now when I'm stuck doing something horrifically dull I can look back with a smirk and think, "Dull? I set the bar on dull pretty high back in the day. You young'uns haven't even seen dull."
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