Published: September 17, 2009 10:28 pm      

LEE WARD: Let’s talk about some humiliation 092009

During my weeklong hospital stay, I came face to face with some of my fears.

Mostly, I’m afraid of heights and snakes, but in the hospital, being safe from those things, a new set of fears kicked in. These fears were humiliation based.

Because I was having digestive problems, I was expecting the dreaded colonoscopy. Perhaps more than that, I dreaded having a scope down my throat.

Everyone says the “cleaning out” process is worse than the experience. I was lucky. Having been unable to eat for about a week, I was pretty well cleaned out when I checked in. Still, I had to drink a little bottle of lemon-flavored laxative. I wondered what everyone was complaining about as I drank it, only to find out people who prep at home usually have to drink two liters of laxative in a certain period of time.

But then, my nurse came in holding something behind her back.

“Remember I told you he ordered something else to clean you out?” she said. “Well, it’s not a pill; it’s a suppository.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “What are you people trying to do to me? I can’t believe this humiliation.”

“Well,” she said. “You can do it yourself.”

“You better believe I will,” I told her, grumbling some other stuff she probably couldn’t hear and I won’t repeat.

However, after I took my medicine, I was more embarrassed about the scene I made than I was having to take a suppository. It was nothing.

As far as I know, my next humiliation occurred a couple of days later, when I had to call a close friend and ask her to go on a panty run for me. I expected I’d be admitted to the hospital when I saw my doctor, so I packed a bag with three pairs. However, I stayed a total of six nights, so I was quite low on the mandatory underwear. I consider it especially mandatory when I’m wearing an open-back night gown.

I said that was my next humiliation as far as I know. I was drugged up for my procedure and don’t remember anything except a weird version of tic-tac-toe that was happening in my head while I was being probed. I could have said anything while they were working on me.

My final humiliation was spending three nights having an adorable, young male RN taking care of me. How is that bad, you wonder? The first time he entered the room, I hadn’t had a shower in a couple of days, my hair was a horrible mess, my skin hadn’t seen moisturizer in days and, or course, no makeup. Not even a swipe of mascara.

Not that I was there to meet men, but most of us still don’t want to be caught unkempt around an attractive man.

At the same time, that was a signal to me that I was feeling better, or else why would I even think about how I looked? I certainly hadn’t thought about it for a while. What a thrill it is to feel so much better after feeling so sick. It’s like coming home from a long vacation and feeling as though everything in the house is new again.

Actually, none of these things would be nearly as humiliating if I didn’t share them with several thousand of my closest friends in the Sunday newspaper. But as a columnist, I live by a code: Never be embarrassed to tell on myself and I’ll never run out of material.