When I was 5, I had a barbaric hospital experience. I think it formed me, and I’ve told it and written it already and I’m sure I will again. But this is the 50^th lesson I’ve posted in this blog, and it feels like it ought to be special. Here’s a quick summary of what I learned that summer night.

My parents dropped me off for a tonsillectomy and overnight stay. They were directed by the doctor not to tell me what I was there for. That’s cruel and stupid advice, and it’s only my acquaintance with my parents’ steady reverence for any doctor’s words that lets me believe they could have followed it. But they did.

The nurse who first escorted me didn’t look closely enough at my chart to get my name right. She and her colleagues didn’t listen to me and acted like my body was their business instead of mine. They disrobed me without my consent, gave me a shot with no warning, parked me in a corridor in a wheelchair and left me unattended. It was as if they were doing all they could to convince me that they didn’t know what they were doing.

The ether was awful. The bars on my bed were in my opinion unnecessary. The nausea was obnoxious. The ginger ale was no consolation.

The night was long and lonely. I thought I didn’t sleep. I heard voices that sounded to me like a family – a woman’s, a man’s and a boy’s – and the sound of a refrigerator door with glass bottles in it. I felt sickness in waves and it seemed like with each pulse of illness I expelled a little fear and replaced it with disgust.

Around dawn I let the vomit come without turning to the bean-shaped pan. It slid along my cheeks to my ears and hair, and my only move was to push the call button at the head of my crib. I didn’t respond as the two nurses clucked disapproval and unwillingly cleaned me.

Soon after that they put me in a wheelchair again and pushed me to my parents. I was a different little girl. I no longer wanted the doll they had for me. I never again thoroughly trusted an adult to decide what was best for me. (And don’t even get me started on the healthcare industry)