I had the good fortune recently to spend 36 hours in the Civic Hospital with bad stomach pain. Initial diagnoses of appendicitis proved false. So far doctors haven't really figured out what was wrong except that it could be my intestine, which was swollen, or my ovary, which was red and irritated.

I was injected with iodine and had a cat scan which gave me the peculiar feeling that I had wet my pants. I also had two ultrasounds but not the kind where they make you fill your bladder so that was somewhat of a relief.

Also I got wheeled around on a stretcher and pushed around on a wheelchair. But my favourite part of my visit was my roommate, who was convinced that bad doctors were beating her when she fell asleep and covering her in paint. I didn't see of any of that while I was sharing her room, but I suppose anything is possible.

All in all I was pretty satisfied with my first hospital stay - the room was clean and they brought me toothpaste, but they didn't feed me anything other than Red Rose Tea and Jello, which gets a little old. I lay in bed dreaming of caramel popcorn.