My inner blogger just could not quit taking notes during my recent illness and hospital stay. The people and facts duly noted include:

• The nurse’s aide who wore so much Axe cologne I began to wonder if it could double as anesthetic. It enveloped me, burning my nose all the way to the CAT scan room. I tried mouth-breathing, but then I swear I could taste the stuff in the air. That was worse.

• The way a properly prepared TB skin test looks — a very small disturbance of the skin surrounded by a black Sharpie marker’s circle and big ol’ scribbled letters. Looks like the nurses tagged me with a little hospital graffiti. (Negative on the test results, by the way.)

• A rueful look at my own errors. Before one discovers one is sick enough to go to the hospital and is still experimenting with over-the-counter care, it’s now duly noted that genuine abdominal illness should not be confused with extreme gas pains and treated with Gax-X and a series of butt-up gymnastic positions and writhing in bed at home to encourage the painful poot to escape. Apparently, I was trying to fart out an ovary.

Technorati Tags: hospital observations, gas pains, TB skin test, too much cologne