I fell yesterday in our driveway, slipped on the ice and went down hard on my left side.  I got up and seemed ok, but it sent a lot of memories of 17 years ago spinning in my head.  I had been in a car accident on January 8 broken pelvis in three places, big contusion on the top of my head, and bruised all over.  I ended up in Albany Medical, and three vivid memories flooded me.

Mean Nurse:  It was a rough night, I had an intestinal problem and had probably rung for the nurse at least 4 times.  I couldn't move, so that meant a call for a nurse with a bed pan.  After the last request she put away the bed pan, went to the window and threw it wide open.  I was high up, 5 or 7 stories anyway, and for a moment I thought she was going to throw me out.  But she tucked the blankets all around me tightly, and said "Now go to sleep".  I wasn't upset, it was quite pleasant to feel the cold air on my face and be so warm and snug.  And I fell asleep,

The Hospital is on Fire:  One night I awoke to the loud sound of a fire alarm, and the smell of smoke.  Then someone quietly shut my bedroom door snugly.  What was this?  I was wide awake when I heard the sirens and saw, one, then two, then three fire trucks  roar under my window.  Oh, God, I thought, we're on fire.  I reached for the phone, my first impulse was to call home and tell them I loved them and goodbye.  I dialed Ria's number and it rang, busy, busy.  Who could she be talking to at this hour?  Then I remembered the computer, when the computer was on, the phone was busy.  Anyway, the alarm silenced, there was no uproar, no panic voices, so I again reached for the buzzer and rang the nurse's station.  "Are we ok?" I asked.  Why? - the nurse seemed surprised,  "Oh, the alarm, someone burnt toast in the kitchen and the fire company has to come and check it out if the smoke alarm goes off".  So that was that - and thank God I didn't get Ria, she would have been as nuts as me.

Dead Bodies and Scooch:  One night after midnight they woke me up and said I had to go to X-ray.  Why I asked, the doctor had never mentioned this.  Anyway, I had to go, it took two nurses to lift the sheet I was on and at the count of three, oompa me to the stretcher.  An aide pushed me into an elevator and we went down, down into a dark hall.  There were two other stretchers in the dimly lit hall, both holding body bags and I begged to know where I was.  The x-ray technician said "in the cellar, next to the morgue.  Anyway, he rolled me next to the table and told me to get on.  I can't move I told him, and he looked at me and tiredly said "scooch".  I don't know how to scooch, I said, and he wiggled his body to show me how to do it.  It took a lot of scooching to get on the table, but I was motivated to get the hell out of there and back into my bed, so I did it, and after a few minutes I scooched back on the stretcher.  By that time, the aide had come back for me, and I closed my eyes so not to see my friends in the hallway.

So today, I am very careful - not more falls for me, no hospital beds, no scooching.  Is there such a word?