Hospital Gowns and Other Embarrassments: A Teen Girl's Guide to Hospitals

With needles, strangers, and embarrassing situations, hospitals can be scary places, particularly if you're a teen girl. I can't do anything about those needles. That's up to your doctor. But I can tell you how to make those strangers into friends and give practical ways to avoid embarrassment. This book will make your hospital stay much more enjoyable.  I know, because I cared for girls just like you at one of the top ten children's hospitals in the United States. In down-to-earth terms, I  explain what motivates the doctors, nurses, and others who'll be caring for you. I also give the magic secret to becoming one of their favorite patients. And rest easy. You'll find no dry medical jargon here. Instead, you'll get to know the girls I cared for almost as if they were your closest friends. You'll learn from their experiences, both good and bad. They include:

• Innocent Maria, a young Hispanic girl bravely facing her first surgery.
• Gentle Christy, who would die from an inoperable brain tumor on her fifteenth birthday. I took care of her during her last nights and she taught me much about trust.
• The Post-op Girls. Summer brought many surgeries, and these were girls recovering from a most serious one, a spinal fusion. So casual, they embarrassed me more than they did themselves.
• The Sensible Girls. Showing a wealth of good girl sense, they taught me how to handle with finesse the many embarrassing situations a hospital brings. You'll learn a lot from them.
• Rule-making Heidi and no-nonsense Fay and Kay. Chronic illnesses made them professional patients who knew what they wanted and how to get it.
• Overwhelmed Pala, just diagnosed with leukemia and vulnerable, she needed my strength to substitute for her own.
• Broken Tina, one of my saddest experiences. Facing leukemia at twelve, just as she became a woman, she wanted to live so desperately, she forgot to remain true to herself. 
• Frightened Ginny. her embarrassment helped me to understand nurses. She's the key to understanding why they sometimes do things that make no sense.

This is a book that could only be written by a guy who has had to deal with the situations that surround caring for the opposite sex. In it, I chronicle the ups and downs, as those wonderful girls and I learned trust and cooperation. I give practical ways to deal with bedpans, flimsy gowns, and the like. You'll learn what to wear under that gown, and I explain how to be firm when events turn uncomfortable. If there's a guy around who is giving you the creeps, I tell you how to get rid of him.Although this book is written for especially for teen girls, there's much that parents and older women will appreciate. It makes an excellent gift for a hospital-bound girl, as well as for nurses and others who work in hospitals. Hospitals need to think more about what embarrassment does to their patients.Finally, this book is dedicated to the many girls who, with much kindness and patience, taught me how to care for them. They'll always hold a special place in my heart.