Each one of us has been blessed with many wonderful traits and one of those that I find most valuable is that I can find “the funny” in just about everything that happens.
Oh, I nurture it; I read everything inspirational and uplifting and humorous I can while avoiding any articles on gloom-and-doom, don’t watch any horror movies or do a lot of what I call hand-twisting. I try not to dwell on things I can’t do anything about and listen to rock ‘n roll real loud.
Not long ago I had to spend over four weeks in the hospital and have a new-found appreciation for anybody who is caught in the same situation. One day was pretty bleak, me on a gurney in “pre-op” waiting for an operating room for the third time in just two weeks, so I kicked on my sense of humor and came up with a caper I call “Corpse.”
When you are in the hospital it doesn’t take long for you to notice that when visitors walk down the hall, each and every one will peer in your room. So what you do is draw the window blinds and turn out every light except the one directly over the bed.
You then strip all the pillows and blankets from the bed, leaving only the bottom sheet, and get a real crisp top sheet and cover your head and the rest of your body with your bare feet sticking out just so. The trick is to lie very still and listen as the gawkers go past. “Oh, Lord, Ethel! Don’t look in here. This guy didn’t make it…”
“I wonder what got him. Musta’ been bad…whoo wee,” said one while another sighed, “They ought to cart him out of here. This is bad for their business….”
Well, the toughest part is trying to keep from laughing. Sure enough, after a while one of the nurses will come along, drawn by the crowd at the door, but the scolding isn’t nearly enough to overcome the delight of hearing those comments and, if you really want to get a rise from the crowd, make your right foot wiggle at just the right time.
So help me, I’ve learned to use stuff like that to my advantage. When I got out of the hospital I had to take a couple of these portable infusion devices with me that would continue to give me a gram of IV antibiotics every 12 hours until I got back home.
Well, the drive from the hospital to the airport in Minneapolis takes about an hour and a half so just before I pointed the rental car north on Route 52, I hitched up one of the medicine bottles to the intake line in my left arm.
The little coat hook over the car’s back door was an ideal hanger so off I went, a Diet Coke and a cigar and a cell phone all fighting the intravenous line for attention, and things are going swell until this Jeep Cherokee starts playing tag with me going up the highway.
The gorgeous Minnesota blonde was driving so we’d pass each other, wave and the next thing you know the two of us are really zipping up the highway. Suddenly I peaked a hill and – boom – there was a state patrolman with his radar gun.
He pulled me over and asked me how fast I thought I was going. Well, the pretty blonde goes sailing past as I guessed “around 80” but he shook his head and came back with, “I gotcha’ at 89. Let me see your driv …. hey, what in the world do you have going on back here!
“Oh that? That is an infusion system that delivers the world’s strongest antibiotics into my system. I’ve got about five kinds of staph infection that the doctors down at the Mayo Clinic are trying hard to catch. Me? I’m hurrying to catch a plane out of the Twin Cities.
“You know, there is an infection out now that eats your flesh. I mean, it can take a man’s arm or foot off before it kills him. Here, I’ll get my driver’s license for you but … look, you might want to handle it with a tissue or a rubber glove or something. I’d hate it if you got sick, especially with this drug-resistant stuff, ‘cause it’ll burn those blue lights back there all the way to the Pearly Gates.”
Well, the state trooper was clearly overcome. “No … I figure you got enough trouble without my adding to it. You just slow down. The airport’s not that far from here. How’d you get so sick?”
“I haven’t got an elbow but, trust me, I am a good driver.”
“I see you are. You have a good day and I hope you feel better real soon” said the officer, hurrying back to his cruiser.
Like I say, you gotta’ keep your sense of humor. Find "the funny;" it will never let you down.
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