A few days ago, I realized a disheartening decision had to be made. I needed to order new scrubs. It was finally time to come to terms with the fact that the old ones were no longer fit for purpose.
Not because they were bought in a fury off of amazon, during a scary time when we all knew that wearing scrubs could afford the easiest and safest transition between work life germs, and home life children, taking them off at the front door and stuffing them into the wash right away. Nor because the said bought, cheaply purchased scrubs were starting to melt in the wash. But, more so because they were starting to cause frank ischemia of my gut every time I wore them.
As it turns out, the shame that brought me to my smallest size I had been in a few years, for a beach holiday in February 2020, would not last into March, when the fear of a pandemic would make me eat all of my feelings (on the regular).
I realized that a) it was no longer reasonable for Jon to have to help me take my shirt off at the end of the day after my arms would inevitably get stuck somewhere between the 12 O'Clock over my head position and the reflective shout, to help get my stuck head out of the head hole AND b) it was no longer acceptable to live on the edge at work wondering when I was going to bust through my crotch bending over to grab something.
All of the elastic waist bands (thumbs up for those), that came with my size small scrubs had given out a couple of months ago, and it was only a matter of time before something else might give. I had flash backs to a time in university when I was wearing these super cool but super tight plaid pants, and I did a "fame" leap outside of a lecture hall (fuck knows why), and my trousers just literally burst off of me.
I'm not up to fame leaping anymore but still not a kind thing to think of for a senior patient venturing out of the house for the first time during a pandemic to see me.
So I ordered again from Amazon. Not so much because I enjoy the feeling of fabric mixed with flame retardant and lost hope and not because I am not worried about how such cheap clothes might have been made. But, because, now that there are more than 1.5 cases of Covid in our province, I am a little bit more shy about going anywhere public to try on clothing that might be of a better, more ethically made quality. Also, I know that the Amazon man must live in my building.....delivering what I want before I've even ordered it.
So I went into my past orders from Amazon, and hit "Re-order" literally only changing my selected size by one size. Ten minutes later when they arrived, I popped them on the dresser, excited that my insanely early start the next day would at least be fit in extreme, made from paper, guilt, and elastic waistband comfort.
What happened this morning is I got up at 5:45 AM, changed in the dark so as to not wake anyone up, and slipped on my new wardrobe that I had pitched into the dryer the night before to make it less crunchy and stiff.
I thought I was still a bit delirious when I put it on this morning, in basically what I consider the middle of the night, and plodded on despite my pants travelling down to my ankles every two steps. As it turns out, with the brand I ordered, one extra size is actually 7 extra sizes. The shirt sits on my dresser. I tried it on. It feels like tent canvas and tent shape...so I'm going to have to wait to grow into that. Saying it's a moo moo is understating both the size and design ever so slightly.
Good things about the pants, they no longer cause my bowel to hemorrhage. Bad things about the pants, they have a draw string and I have to tie it around twice, roll the top over, and still the legs are three people wide. So basically I'm a comfortable clown at work, with pants seven sizes bigger than the shirt I still cannot get off on my own at the end of the day.
Please be kind to your family doctors, they are suffering in ways you will never understand, just trying to get dressed for work.
(And if you're having abdominal pain during the time of covid, before you book into see us, please make sure it's not just because your pants are too tight....cause gas pains are for real my friends...and so is a bowel infarct from denying that your waistband no longer fits your current frame).
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