When my dad was in the hospital a while back, he had some pureed southern fried chicken. We laughed raucously at the very thought of such a thing. Well, who would have known that such an incident came back to haunt me when I was in the hospital recently.
They have it down to a well-oiled sequence of events these days due patient privacy rules, recent trends in litigation, new niche products on the market, competition for the healthcare dollar and improvements in pharmaceuticals, surgical procedures and the overall increasing knowledge of patients as a whole. They can do brain surgery on an outpatient basis, have reduced the stay in-hospital for birthing and they don’t nickel and dime you anymore, they fin and sawbuck you.
Nowadays you need someone to tend to you while you’re at the hospital, being your advocate and keeping a log of what was done, by whom and when. You have to have a complete physical to see if you are well enough to survive the treatment for what ails you. Your primary doctor needs to clear you for surgery, signing away his fire-wall against anything that goes wrong. You’d best make a hand-out to give any and all people who will ask you the same questions over and over again. What drugs do you take; when did you have whooping cough; when was your last visit to a hospital. It takes a month or two to schedule surgery but that is barely enough time to get everyone to sign off on the idea and to build a file of CYA’s.
That being said, I jumped over all the obstacles and through all the hoops and stripped down to a hospital gown, support hose and little sock-a-shoes. It was no biggie I had a color-coordinated set of sock-a-shoes that would fit any code, surgery or whatever. I secreted a trinket to leave under my gown so that when they lifted it in the OR they would be in for a surprise. A check later confirmed that it was found, the all had a good laugh and I was now on everybody’s radar.
Since my procedure involved harvesting some skin from inside my cheek to graft on elsewhere, my diet started out with clear liquids. My mouth WAS sore after-all. And fortune would have it that I was on the same floor as a bunch or kids who ate all the ice cream and sherbet and drank all the mainstream libations. I was left with asparagus nectar and some Big Lots closeout Bulgarian tea substitute. It was a long night.
Bright but not early the next morning I was served pureed sausage, pureed scrambled eggs, de-lumped cream of tofu and some blanched pureed jumping beans (they jumped right back on my plate after the first taste). The pureed sausage tasted like sausage and threatened my stomach like sausage but looked like they had chased a sick pig to collect a prairie muffin. They had I Can’t Believe You Think This Is Butter, but we couldn’t find anything to “butter” with it. The scrambled eggs were good in spite of the high probability they were egg-a-noids. I was stalled in the check-out procedure until my lunch arrived.
I gingerly lifted the cove on the entrée. Much to my surprise, it was pureed ham with pureed applesauce, pureed broccoli and pureed corn on the cob! There was mystery oleo, pureed mashed potatoes, yogurt, tea and 0.1% extremely low fat milk. Our attention was turned to the pureed corn on the cob. It still looked like corn on the cob at first glance. We guffawed and knee-slapped, cackling like a bunch of hens. I lamented missing out on the pureed supper. What could it be we speculated: Pureed lobster shaped back into a lobster shape? Pureed cheeseburger with pureed buns reshaped into bun-like objects, pureed hamburger patties reshaped into patty-like form, the same treatment for lettuce, pickles and onions? The possibilities were endless, each more hilarious than one before. We took a picture of the plate before I devoured the evidence. You have to see it to believe it.
