The Hospital Gown

Don’t worry, I’m fine

In the last month (give or take a few days) I’ve had two occasions to don a hospital gown. Most women wear them a few times a year for anything from mammograms to visits to sundry doctors’ offices we routinely visit. Wearing a hospital gown is rarely noteworthy but in a year of nothing being normal, both times were remarkable, at least to me.

In early October I started feeling awful with increasing pain that felt similar to the pain that landed me in the emergency room twice before I had surgery to repair a hernia. After three days of barely making it through an eight-hour work shift, I decided to drive myself to the emergency room, where to my astonishment, I was admitted. 

Rather than going into the details of what was wrong with me or how it was (easily, but unpleasantly) remedied, we’ll skip to the part of the story where I wore not one, but two hospital gowns (one open in the back, the other in the front) for the two days I spent at St. Luke’s hospital in Utica, NY. 

The big hospital gown

For many years I have routinely been handed the big gowns for people too large for the standard-issue gowns. These big gowns are very big. I’m not sure, but I guess there are two sizes of hospital gowns: regular and tremendous and I always got the tremendous gown. I don’t exaggerate when I say those extra-large gowns could probably accommodate someone weighing double my highest weight. 

At the hospital, I think my gowns were the regular ones, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too preoccupied with being a patient in a hospital, far from home, alone, and in pain. Being in the hospital sucks no matter where you are, but it’s extra stressful when there’s no one there to hold your hand. Removing those gowns and putting on my clothes to ‘go home’ even to a hotel, filled me with relief.

The theme of 2020

I don’t think it’s too early to call 2020 one of the most calamitous for the world, the US, and me, personally. Though I am well aware that I’m much more fortunate than millions of other people, my year has been replete with challenges which I won’t list now, but stay tuned… Which brings me to my follow-up visit to the dermatologist last week. 

In early October I had what my doctor called “a little skin cancer” removed from my cheek. (Have I mentioned what a great year it’s been?) When you have “a little skin cancer” you get to visit the doctor every six months for the next two years or they find something new, whichever comes first. That means a full-body inspection and necessitates removing most of your clothes and putting on a hospital gown so you can be inspected top to literally, between your toes. 

The regular hospital gown

When the PA handed me the gown I didn’t give it much thought. It was an early morning appointment, and I was relieved I’d decided to shower, and embarrassed that I had no idea when the last time was that I’d shaved my legs. I put it on as instructed, open in the back, and as I tied the strings at the neck I realized the gown fit me. Fit me, not as in managed to encompass my girth, but fit me as in this was clearly a regular-sized hospital gown that easily covered me.

After the oh-so-fun inspection, the PA stayed behind to see if I had any questions. I sure did! Risking looking like a fool or lunatic I asked her if the gown she’d given me was the normal one given to (most) patients. She said it was and I pushed ahead. Did this mean she had assessed me as someone who would fit into a regular gown? Obviously she had, but I needed her to tell me.

One good thing

A few months ago I wrote about my ongoing quest to lose weight this year. It has been a slow process, but after a year of diligence, I have shed a little over fifty pounds. Writing this feels untrue; an exaggeration. I remind myself, it’s not. Today I weigh less than I have in more than 25 years. I am still overweight, but less so. I fit into a normal hospital gown! It seems like an odd thing to celebrate, yet tying that gown felt more consequential than trading in my plus-size pants for regular ones. 

Do I look very different? I don’t think so, but I could be wrong. I had to get new pants because my old ones were falling off of me, but I still wear the same shirts and sweaters. For most of my life, I’ve longed for some kind of magical transformation. Would this haircut be the one to make me beautiful? If I wear this periwinkle sweater will people forget I’m fat and just see my blue eyes? That hospital gown didn’t transform me, but the fact that it fit me did. It’s not a transformation anyone can see. But I feel it. I feel the invisible transformation from the giant one into the regular hospital gown.