My nurse shook her head as she put me back in the crib and said, “That wasn’t very bright! The head nurse is very upset with you. I’d have thought that you had better sense than to climb out the crib on your own. I’m lucky she had sent me down to the pharmacy to pick up some medications or she would have blamed me for what you did. Falling from the chair clenched it for her, she told me you’re as irresponsible as an infant and had to be treated that way. Do you know how it looks when a patient gets injured at the hospital? Your doctor is going to be very upset with everyone. She added special orders to your chart that you’re to be kept in a crib with a top until you’re released from the hospital. She’s calling your doctor right now to tell him what happened and what she’s ordered to prevent you from hurting yourself again.”
The nurse slammed the side shut and said, “She told me to take the nurse call out of your crib so you don’t get into any mischief with it. She told me to tell you that we’re not going to worry about you using a bedpan while you’re here. She said that you’ve had no problems using a diaper so far and she sees no reason why you shouldn’t continue to use one. I’d be careful if I were you. If you cause her any more problems she’s going to get nasty.”
I apologized humbly for my behavior and sat in my crib while I waited for lunch to come. About thirty minutes later I saw a food service worker push a steel-sided cart to the nurse’s station and hand the unit clerk a clipboard to sign. Minutes later my nurse arrived with my lunch tray.
I have to give her credit, she did try to serve me a meal like an adult. She borrowed an overbed table from one of the other nursing departments and dropped the side of the crib to allow it to be rolled in over the mattress. After spilling the glass of low fat milk they had given me for lunch, my nurse had to change the sheets of the crib. Then I had problems cutting the minuscule serving of meat the dietitian had permitted me and knocked the food all over the clean sheet she had just put on the crib.
My nurse was fed up, she picked me up out of the crib and sat me in the chair while she went to get clean bedding and reorder lunch for me. When she returned, she was carrying a high chair along with the bedding. She set the high chair up next to the crib and put me in the chair while she changed the linens. About the same time she finished, an employee from food service arrived with another tray. The nurse took the tray from the dietary aide and set the tray in front of me, then began cutting up my meat so I wouldn’t have any more accidents. I forked up some of the meat and put it into my mouth before I realized something was wrong. All is took was one chew to realize everything was not as it should be.
I had no teeth. Actually, I wasn’t exactly toothless, but the full set of teeth I had had before the accident had huge gaps. I felt around my mouth with my tongue to see how many teeth were missing. I had a few molars, but my incisors were gone. The meat fit neatly around the few teeth I did have and I found it impossible to chew it up. I spit the meat out on the tray and looked up at my nurse helplessly. She looked at me as if she was about to scream and said testily, “Well? What is it this time?”
“My teeth,” I muttered, swallowing whole the remaining meat in my mouth.
“Your what?”, she asked not understanding my muffled mumble.
“My teeth!”, I shouted, pulling back my lip to reveal the naked gums, “They’re gone! See?”
“Oh God! Why me?”, the nurse exclaimed, rolling her eyes heavenward, “Hang on! I’ll be right back with a meal you can eat!”