Hospital Hijinks: A Patient's Memoir: Destiny of a Delinquent Memoir Series #1

By Rick Mulligan

What's so funny about dying?

Nothing really, but if you focus on the pain and the suffering you're going to be mighty depressed. Why not look for the humor in the situation and have some fun pranking the nurses and hospital personnel?

Read about one patient's snarky attempts to keep himself amused while suffering from several different and potentially life-ending situations.

Warning: If you are a woman prone to judging with comments like, "You're so immature!" this is not the book for you.

Guys, come and enjoy some naughty fun!

Destiny of a Delinquent Memoir Series #1. 170 pages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rick Mulligan
• Release date: Mar 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781935683254

Book preview

I Hate Hospitals!

Well, I don’t hate them when I have a bone protruding from my skin or I’m gushing blood from an open wound, but, in general, I am not a fan of staying in hospitals. I’d rather crawl in a hole and see if I can recover on my own if at all possible.

The problem is I have spent entirely too much time in hospitals, starting from the day I was born.

Did you know that hospitals cause or contribute to brain damage?

Family folklore relates the story of the day I was born where some dumbass doctor (apparently into BDSM) slapped my butt, so I peed in his face. Big mistake. He dropped me on my head. Apparently it took a week of spinning me around on one of those potter’s wheels and molding me like a lump of clay to return my head from its flattened shape to a more normal rounded look.

My next adventure in a hospital revolved around surgery to shorten an optic muscle to keep me from having crossed eyes. The anesthesiologist gave me too much gas and they had a devil of a time getting me to wake up after surgery. Add to that projectile vomiting for the next week, and little Ricky was not a happy camper (but my situation may have been the basis for the Exorcist franchise).

My next visit was to remove my tonsils. I was tricked into going through with the operation with promises of all the ice cream I could eat. Lying sacks of poop. I can eat a lot of ice cream and they did not even come close to satisfying my desire.

Just place the soft-serve machine next to my bed, I said.

No, honey, replied the nurse. We’ll bring it to you.

Which really meant you might get a bowl of vanilla ice cream every 12-hours, or more likely only when they felt like it. So, I peed on the floor next to my bed frequently. Piss me off, I piss on the floor.

Finally, I believe I suffered major brain damage when I was in second grade at a Catholic school.

In Catholic school they used a gymnacafetorium. It tripled as a cafeteria, an auditorium, and a gymnasium on days when inclement weather made recess outside impossible. The 11th and 12th graders decided that meant all other grades must sit quietly around the edge of the basketball court while they played.

Bored, but feeling like I was lending a helping hand, I would chase after the basketball when it went out of bounds and throw it back to the players. Most of the guys responded with, Thanks, man. and went right on playing.

However, one time I threw the ball back to a senior who exploded at me, I told you to sit on the side and stay out of the way! He threw the ball back at me as hard as he could which hit me in the chest and lifted me off the floor. I landed on my back and whacked my head on the floor.

I must have passed out and subsequently acted in a semi-conscious manner because the next thing I remember, I was trying to make my way back to my classroom, dragging myself down the hall with my head and shoulders leaning heavily against the wall and leaving a trail of blood.

My teacher came out of the room and found me, and in that way teachers have of immediately knowing something was wrong – probably the blood on the wall and on my white uniform school shirt - she screamed. To this day, I believe the volume and intensity of that shriek sterilized me and saved the world from my having children and infesting the planet with my genetic code.

I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and spent the next week being hooked up to electrodes, EEG machines, X-rays, and several other devices to determine the extent of my brain damage. And I do believe I suffered brain damage.

For the next several years, I had to take a medicine to prevent migraine headaches. In the first few years the medicine was not a remarkable success. I got blinding headaches that made every sensation unbearable. I cried my eyes out which only made it hurt worse.

In second grade I was already considering ways to die.

Which is why for each additional visit to the hospital as an adult, I was already prepared to walk into the light. I am not going to lie in a bed for prolonged periods in significant pain hoping that it will go away. If I am a vegetable or unresponsive for a week – pull the plug. And, don’t worry, I will put in a good word for you with St. Peter.

Unfortunately for me, the nurses would not listen to my pleas and kept me alive – most likely for their own amusement.

Yes, Please, and Thank You!

(Yes, I know we have already briefly discussed this, but it bears repeating.)

I have had the dubious pleasure of visiting many hospitals, urgent care centers, and emergency rooms in the past sixty-years and I have to say I am shocked by the way most people treat nurses.

In my opinion, nurses are saints. I understand that many people are in a great deal of pain and possibly scared, not knowing what is happening. Why is that bone sticking out of my arm? Is that my blood all over the floor? Is that Grandma asking me to step into the light? However, these are the women and men who are trying to help you in a time of extreme need. Why would you want to curse them out?

It makes about as much sense as cursing out your server at a diner before the meal has arrived. I wonder how many meals have been served to rude customers with unsavory additions spicing up the meal. Hey Bob, reach around back of the stove and spice these eggs up with a couple of rat turds. Yummy.

Yet in the hospital I would hear the person in the next room yelling, Where's my freaking blanket! I asked for one a half hour ago. In reality, he had asked for one only thirty seconds ago. In any case, did cursing out the nurse help him? If I were the nurse, I would have turned the air conditioning way down and given him a sponge bath without drying him off. Talk about shrinkage.

Simple, common courtesy rules, not only in the hospital but pretty much everywhere else in life as well. Making requests followed by the magic word, please works wonders. Saying thank you even for the smallest service makes a big difference. And, while this is cliché, a smile is the one thing you can give away with no loss to you, but can brighten someone else's day.

I made sure to be as polite as possible, even when suffering a great deal of pain. Nurses have a sense of when a patient is in distress (you have stopped breathing, the heart monitor has flat lined, the bedpan is full to overflowing) and will do what it takes to save your life even when you are acting like an anal retentive of epic proportions (that is a proper medical term).

I tend to think of myself as a shy, quiet, reserved kind of fellow. Although, if you asked people that have known me for more than five-minutes they would likely tell you I am a wiseass prone to verbal and practical jokes. Why is it that people who know you best wound you the most? I have a tender and fragile heart.

In any case, I made it my mission to make sure the nurse had at least one good laugh before she left the room. (I know I am being sexist in using the pronoun she to describe nurses, but suck it up guys, we still have dominance in the pronoun department for much of the rest of literature.)

I actually heard nurses fighting over who got to be my nurse for the shift because I was so entertaining, and I believe, polite.

I have to admit, even with the pretentious comments above, I did have a Nurse Ratchet that prompted my demonic side to surface and terrorize. (See the movie One Flew over