When Autumn Windhover, 28, went into Mount St. Maple Hospital for a hernia repair, they never anticipated what they would learn there. They thought they would figure out how to care for their body after surgery. However, due to their placement in a single room right outside the nurses station, Autumn now knows absolutely everything going on at Mount St. Maple.
For example, Barbara in pediatrics has a marriage that is really on the rocks, and she doesn’t know what to do because her husband’s family is planning a trip to Aruba next year and she really wants to go with them but she’s not sure she can stay with him that much longer.
The guy in room 401C has the biggest tattoo anyone on staff has ever seen, covering his entire front and back with a you-know-what all the way down to his you-know-what. Catheterizing him is like going to an art museum.
On Sunday there was an hours-long discussion about whether the staff should order lunch, and if so, from where. The nurses and aides eventually decided to place a large order from the Shish Kebab House, but Pam from radiology had never heard of a shish kebab and wasn’t at all certain about eating “foreign” food.
There was so much poop on the floor of 31B that PCA Hector wants to throw out his shoes, but the Payless near his house is closed.
One of the surgeons, Dr. White, likes to play ’90s Disney songs during procedures. If his PAs have to hear “A Whole New World’ one more time, they may break sterility just so they can punch him.
“I really don’t think most people understand how acute autistic hearing is,” Autumn commented after they were discharged to recover at home. “We don’t tune out sounds. They kept leaving my door open, so either they didn’t mind being heard or they didn’t know I was listening. It wasn’t as if I could get out of bed to close the door myself.”
When asked for comment, Mount St. Maple Hospital declined to make a statement, but Autumn overheard the hospital administrator saying she “doesn’t know why this nosy newspaper is asking these questions” and that “they better not try her.”