JOYRIDE III

The spring is the season when I feature the best student work from my essay class at Atlantic Cape Community College as we try to develop the next generation of “Joyriders.” This week’s column is by Juliann Scott, a graduate of Ocean City High School.
The final bell rang and my fellow sixth-grade classmates rocketed from their seats. Spring break had officially started. My classmates jetted off to the normal vacation spots while I geared up for a different type of retreat. I didn’t go to any typical vacation spot, instead I was headed for the operating room. This wasn’t any mundane procedure either. I was having open-heart surgery in Baltimore at Johns Hopkins University.
Machines beeped constantly as I drifted in and out of consciousness. Bloated and immobile as sheer curtains separated my bunkmate, and me I was scared. The faded white walls, medical equipment, and roaming nurses did not make me feel at ease. A nightmare had replaced my life.
Hospitals are like zoos, caging patients in small rooms with a tiny window. Friends, family and staffers come by to ogle at the patient’s dismay.
Feedings are scheduled and play is scarcely permitted. The only thing missing at a zoo is the noisy machines.
I had no recollection of the procedure after coming out of my pharmaceutical-induced coma. I awoke to a horrific scene: IVs, strict diets, pills, feeding agendas and vital routines.
Obviously, uninterrupted sleep was not an option. My eyes shut for mere seconds before the nurses on duty woke me up for vitals. That was the one appointment they were constantly on time for, anything else took forever.
For a person who spent a most of her life in a hospital, you would think I’d be used to it. It feels as if these operations have become tedious events. If only life were like a movie and my sister and I could magically switch bodies.
Hospital life is not the lap of luxury my sister assumes. Lying motionless on a paper-thin bed and scratchy sheets shared by mass amounts of people is not glorious at all.
My sister always seemed to pine for a medical problem and when she was told she was anemic, she was ecstatic. Now she is a nurse in Seattle and lives to tell her “fascinating” tales.
She sees it from the other side of the bed. She does not realize how lucky she is to be healthy, nor does she know the strength and agony it takes to have a severe condition or be hospitalized.
My sister wants to be in the spotlight. She didn’t like sitting on the sidelines while I was the center of attention, so she decided to become a nurse. In medical school, I became her case study as she would poke and prod at my body.
Although she used to crave the attention, now it’s more about the gratification of helping others. Hospitals can bring both joyful experiences and horrifying memories. Although modern medicine has definitely helped me, sometimes the hospital visits were worse than my ailments.
Keith Forrest an assistant professor of communication at Atlantic Cape Community College. His late mother Libby Demp Forrest Moore wrote the Joyride column for this newspaper for 20 years.