I used to think I had a fair grasp of the English language. As a writer who's been doing this a long time, I know a lot of big words; when to use them and when to use their shorter counterparts. I know the difference between their, there and they're; I know that underway should be two words instead of one, unless you're talking about a departing ship. I know all kinds of good stuff.
But my recent stay in the hospital, where I bid farewell to my gall bladder, showed me there's another English language going on, a language just beneath the surface of linguistic awareness most of us assume to be the totality of the spoken word.
It’s a language spoken by doctors, nurses, orderlies and other hospital personnel. And though some of the words at first seem familiar, they have — trust me — meanings of which most of us are unaware.
The word “stool,” for instance. To the average man on the street, a stool is a place to put your feet at night, or maybe something to sit on while puttering in the garden.
Doctors and nurses think it’s something else altogether, and they LOVE to talk about it, in depth and at length; when you last had one, what it looked like, whether it manifested itself in the shape of White Jumpsuit Elvis … they can’t get enough of the stool talk.
“Presents” is another familiar word used in a strange way by hospital personnel. Presents are supposed to be a good thing, right? They bring to mind happy memories of birthdays and Christmas.
Or they used to. One visit to the emergency room and all that changes. Like “stool,” docs love to use — or misuse — the word “presents.” As in: “Your condition frequently presents as earth-shattering pain,” or “Based on the way your sonogram presents, we’ll have to remove your spleen through your nose.”
That sort of thing. It’s enough to make you hope for no more presents. Ever.
Doctors and nurses also employ a variety of clever phrases disguised as non-threatening, off-the-cuff asides. These include: “OK, you may feel a little pressure now.” This translates into: “OK, this will give you some idea of what you can expect if you ever make it to Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell.”
When removing bandages — bandages that have for the past week covered stitches with quadruple the adhesive power of Krazy Glue — nurses will ask, “So, do you want this quick or slow?” This means: “I can either yank out all your chest hairs at once, or do them one at a time over the course of 10 minutes. Either way, I’m sure to win fifteen bucks in the office pool when you cry like a baby.”
Of course, as a (hack) writer in tune with the nuances of the English language, it was only a matter of time before I came to understand the way things work.
While I was recovering from my surgery, the nurses gave me a wonderful, wonderful, grrooooovy drug called Dilaudid. It’s really good. Seriously, I’ve never been attracted to drugs before, but if I could buy this stuff at Walmart, I doubt I’d ever do anything else ever again.
It didn’t take me long to figure out that when a nurse asks me to rate my pain on a scale of one-to-ten, the correct answer, the answer that earns me my next “fix,” is: Eleven.
In truth, the pain was generally closer to a five. But “five” got me a Tylenol; “eleven” merited a dose of the good stuff.
In fact, after a hit of the Dilaudid, I felt comfortable taking part in the ongoing stool conversation.
I guess it’s all in how you say it.
mtaylor@staffordmediasolutions.com
(616) 548-8273
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