As with most events in my life, tragedy (or near tragedy) coexists fairly closely with hilarity. When I was 13 weeks pregnant with my son, on the very day of our move from Brooklyn to Greenwich CT, I came down with a wicked case of what turned out to be camphylobacter (a serious food poisoning...kind of like salmonella). I called my midwives in a panic and they said it was an emergency and that I could lose the baby from the intense cramping.
As soon as we arrived in Greenwich, Tony had to find a friend to take care of Emma (who was 9) and get me to the hospital ASAP. I was admitted right away, but the only available room was on the Geriatric floor. The doctors spent the first 3 days trying to figure out what was wrong with me and the nurses were just happy to have someone under 90 to talk to.
One night, at around 2 AM, one of them came in to hook up my IV and she was feeling really awful about having yelled at one of her patients. I'd constantly hear them screaming out for the nurses, or just plain wailing. On this particular night, one little old lady kept calling out ... "Nurse!! Nurse!! A naked lady stole my sweater!!" The nurse would go into the woman's room and reassure her that everything was fine, and try to get her back into bed. Again, "Nurse! Nurse! A naked lady stole my sweater!!" After about the fourth time, she stormed into the woman's room and snapped, "Get back to bed! Now!! And don't call me again!"
She went back to the nurse's station and began to do some paperwork. Hearing someone approach, she looked up and saw a smug-looking elderly woman shuffling past, buck naked except for a pink cardigan around her shoulders.
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