As I settled into my room in my recent hospital stay, I was told that I was at risk for syncope. I knew that syncope was med-industryspeak for fainting, but didn’t know what they were getting at. They were getting at telling me that since I could faint at any moment, someone had to be by my side whenever I was out of the bed. They needed to be ready to catch my noggin in case I fell.

I tried explaining that there was no chance of that. When these episodes happen, I’ve got all sorts of other stuff going on that encourage me to sit or lie down. I’m nauseous and stupidly tired when these spells hit me. There’s no chance that I’d be standing around waiting for the floor to bash my noggin. They didn’t care and said something about doctors’ orders.

They told me that if I needed to powder my nose, then I could call someone to stand by me as I took care of business or I could use the handy dandy piss bucket so that I could powder my nose while in bed.

I chose the latter. Around 1:00am, I grabbed the bucket, swung my feet around for secure positioning and…

… the bed alarm went off creating more noise and fuss than a bank robbery. 3 or 4 of the nursing staff came in and turned off the alarms.

I was pissed (so to speak). “I understand that you’re instructed to be by my side whenever I’m up and about but setting an alarm whenever I move my feet off the bed is really uncalled for.”

They seemed sheepish at that and agreed to turn off the <naughty word> bed alarm if I agreed to call them whenever I needed to leave the bed.

When the cardiologist came by in the morning, I asked him about rescinding the “risk of syncope” order. He said “That wasn’t us. The nursing staff came up with that.”

Those lying sacks of stuff! I asked the doctor if he could encourage the nurses to rescind the order. He said he’d try.

It worked. I was soon allowed to go potty all by myself. And I’m only 59!