Modesty? You Gotta Be Kidding Me

Have you noticed that people who work in the medical field are getting younger all the time? All the people my age or older must have retired and now their children and grandchildren are taking their place. Last week I went for some tests that my doctor wanted me to have and everyone at the facility looked like they were fresh out of college. I don’t mind young folks prodding and poking at me but it occurred to me that there is a definite generation gap between many of the folks getting the tests and the professionals performing the tests.

The Generation Gap

For example, I had to have an echocardiogram and of course the first thing the guy says to me is, “Take off your clothes and put on this gown.” By the time you reach my age you know the routine and you are familiar with those thin little gowns that leave most parts showing and freeze you to death. I did as I was told and then climbed up on the table and waited for him to get the gadgets and gizmos ready for the test.

Just as he’s about to begin the procedure he hands me a little blanket and instructs me to use it to protect my modesty as I change positions. That’s when I knew for sure there was a generation gap.

Modesty? Really? A woman my age who has given birth 4 times and who has had a multiple colonoscopies is not accustomed to anyone at a medical facility being worried about her modesty.

I realize that he was being kind and I appreciated it, I really did. It just caught me off guard. Sort of like my 4th pregnancy did back when I was in the baby making business. You would think by the time I had delivered 3 babies the 4th time would be a piece of cake, but that experience is the one that actually convinced me that there is no room for modesty in a hospital.

Twins

The shock of learning we were were going to have twins kept us numb for the first two trimesters. As we watched my stomach grow to the size of a beach ball we tried to prepare ourselves for the whirlwind that was about to take place in our lives. My first 3 pregnancies were without the benefit of an epidural and I was determined that this time I would have one. I figured I owed it to myself, sort of like a consolation prize for having twins at the age of 36.

Our babies were due the end of January but as twins so often do, they decided to come early. The day after Christmas I went into labor and my husband and I went to the hospital to have our boys. The first thing to go wrong was that the doctor who was to give me my epidural had taken his family to Florida for Christmas and he didn’t have a replacement. So much for consolation prize. The second thing to happen that while baby number 1 was in position for take off and delivery, baby number 2 had turned upside down and was breech.

I was upset that I wasn’t getting the epidural but I was more upset when they said they were taking me to the operating room in case I had to have a Caesarean. My husband went into adrenalin overdrive and helped wheel me down the hall. He was in such a hurry he ran me straight into a wall and my bed bounced backwards like a boomerang. When they finally got me through the doors and into the O.R. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The room was completely filled with masked bandits dressed in blue surgical scrubs. Within seconds they were all hovering over me like vultures over road kill.

We live in a town so small we didn’t have a stop light until a few years ago. There were so many people in that room they must have passed out free admission tickets on the square to everyone who didn’t have anything better to do. I was in no shape to tell anyone to leave. In fact, I was in no shape to do anything but what my body was determined to do; get those babies out!

There’s nothing like giving birth to twins in front of half your hometown to strip away any semblance of modesty you might have had left after 3 previous births.

Keep the Faith

If you go to the mall in the summer time, sit on a bench and people watch you might wonder if anyone still believes in “modesty.” The answer is yes. He’s a nice young man who works at a health clinic and does echocardiograms.