Umm, Sir?

I’m going to give you a scenario to think about. Let’s say you are scheduled for an injection for back pain. Position of your body: lying on your belly. Location of injection: slightly north of your buttcrack. Uniform to wear: grippy slippers, a hair net, your skivvies, and a gown.

Now, here’s my question that must be posed.

Why the hell wouldn’t you wear underwear to that appointment?

Hear me out, I understand some people go commando on a daily basis. I can’t understand that personally, as I would expect mad chafing, but I get it. Unders can be constricting and you are a free spirit and all, but, dang it, dig deep into your clothes drawer and pull out something to cover yourself! Granny panties, period underwear, swimwear, I don’t care!

We don’t want to get a sneak peek into your man or lady bits as you’re traipsing down the hall with your gown flapping because you couldn’t figure out the ties! Nor do we want to assist in getting you into position for said injection to get a flash of your cheeks or worse, your dangly things down yonder. I’m begging you, find some fabric.

And for Pete’s sake, if we offer you shorts, accept them! We didn’t sign up for THAT! Not in our pay grade, Sir! Not on our list of Nursing Responsibilities, Ma’am! NEVER something we look forward to!

I’ll tell you about a traumatic experience for one of our young gals who I work with. She was hit straight on (vision line!! Get your mind out of the gutter) while a man, who had the deep voice of the devil and nads the size of a 2000lb bull, situated himself on his back, knees up, for knee injections. She visibly was shocked by that eye full and threw her body out of the sight line. Trauma was written clearly on her face and that poor girl spent the rest of her shift in shock. She’s gonna need months of therapy to assist with that searing sight.

Now, most of the patients do wear underwear which makes the flashes of flesh that much more surprising. We usually don’t know when it’s coming. Sometimes we get a heads up from the gal who roomed the patient, but if you have ever driven by a car crash or a train derailment or something similarly life-altering, you know that it’s difficult to peel your eyes away from the destruction! Same thing here. There are days I wish I was blind or wearing bilateral eye patches.

Our team can only hope that we don’t have a hospital gown pageant anytime soon, or ever. Our luck is the contestants would be those who didn’t think to slip on some cotton briefs or did but didn’t think they needed to keep them on even after we walk them through what stays and what goes prior to getting changed. Lord, help us.

On the other hand, there is always the option of misinterpreting our instructions and putting the gown on backward…

Well, I think I have all my bases covered. Dont forget yours if you find yourself in the doctors office. If not, warn a girl, will ya!?