Stitches

In 1960, when I was seven years old and in the hospital after getting stitches, a female nurse (I don’t think that there was such a thing as male nurses in these days) gave me a beaker and told me to go pee in it.  I was standing at the edge of the room and the nurse was right in front of the door that lead to the hallway.  I asked her if I could go to the bathroom and do it, but she just said that I had to pee so she could go home at the end of her shift and that I had to do it right now.  She was persistent and she told me to drop my pants and pull down my underwear to my knees and she gave me this look that said I better hurry up and urinate.  I felt awkward, humiliated and embarrassed having her give me a command that I had to obey, but I did what she told me to do.  I had never made pee before with somebody watching me and I told her that it was difficult for me to pee because she was watching me, plus people were walking in the hall going right past the room.

The nurse said that I did not have anything that she had not seen hundreds of times before.  She told me that I could turn around, so she would not be looking at me if that helped.  I did not care how many people she had seen naked, my only concern was that she not see me naked.  I turned around to face away from her and I tried to make pee, but I couldn’t do it.  I really tried, but nothing came out.  The nurse yelled at me saying, “You are going to pee and you are going to do it now.  I don’t want to have to put a catheter in you, so just relax and breathe slowly and if you need to, then tap your fingers on the sides of the container, which should help you to concentrate on what needs to happen.  Don’t try to force it, just let your pee push itself out of your bladder.”  I had no clue what a catheter was, but the word did not sound very nice when she said it.   I was just a kid and I did not even think that this might be an invasion of my privacy, as she was an adult and kids were supposed to do what adults told them to do.  Anyway back in these days everything was so much different.

This went on for at least five minutes, but eventually I was able to get the stream going and even though I had my back to the nurse, I knew that she could hear everything.  She yelled at me to make sure that I was aiming into the container and that I did not splash anything.  When I was done she grabbed the container out of my hand and she did not even wait for me to pull my pants back up.  I was sure that she peaked at me and this made me start blushing.  I could not understand why she was in such a hurry, I felt like she was trying to humiliate me.  This episode in my life was traumatic for me, as getting the stitches was bad enough, but then having to make pee for this nurse made me feel shame like I lost my dignity.  For me, this was a big deal having someone see my privates, I did not like being undressed in front of a stranger and also because no one had ever demanded that I make pee while they were watching me before.

As I got older, I started to understand that going to see a doctor might require me to remove some or all of my clothing. I was still not real comfortable being undressed in front of anyone, but I did accept it as a necessary inconvenience.  I guess I was a teen ager, before my modesty disappeared and I was more willing to disrobe and accommodate the doctors and nurses.

Written for Linda G Hill Life in progress January 11, 2018 #JusJoJan Daily Prompt is Humiliate by A Unique Title For Me, hey wait that is me.