Must’ve Had His Heart Surgically Removed

CONTENT WARNING: Surgery Details

In my early twenties, I am married to a software engineering student who is attending a college that offers married and family housing, where we live for three years. When I am twenty-one — and receiving AMAZING medical and long-term disability benefits from my job in a call center — I have surgery to correct a major birth defect in my chest called pectus excavatum, otherwise known as sunken chest syndrome.

The surgery involves a thoracic surgeon making a roughly fourteen-inch incision under my breasts and literally dissecting and reassembling my sternum with Kevlar mesh and plastic pins. The surgery is really awful to watch and leaves a very nasty-looking incision plus severe bruising on my chest immediately after surgery.

About two weeks after the surgery, I am in my bathroom doing a bandage change and cleaning the surgery site when I am suddenly startled by a maintenance man opening the bathroom door! The guy didn’t knock or announce himself, so I haven’t had time to make myself “decent”.

Instead of being apologetic…

Maintenance Man: “Why the h*** is your top off?! What happened to your chest?! It looks disgusting! Didn’t you get the message that we were going to be doing routine maintenance on the plumbing this week? I wouldn’t have accepted this job if I knew that I was going to see things this disgusting!”

Maintenance had sent out a message, but they didn’t specify the specific time or day that they were going to be at my apartment.

Me: “Why the h*** did you enter my apartment without announcing yourself? You know that this is family housing, so anyone could be home when you were doing your maintenance! My chest looks like this because I just had major surgery to correct a very painful birth defect that my poverty-stricken parents couldn’t afford to fix! What, I don’t have the right to change my bandages in my own apartment?”

One of the maintenance supervisors (whom I know quite well) hears the whole exchange from the stairwell.

Supervisor: *To the maintenance man* “What is wrong with you? Your training told you that you are supposed to knock five times and loudly announce yourself when you enter living quarters! I heard you just walk right into Mrs. [My Name]’s apartment!” 

Maintenance Man: “But I’m maintenance! I have the right to enter any living quarters that I want to! You should report her to Housing because she shouldn’t be doing something that disgusting in her apartment! I never expected to see disgusting things when I took this job!”

Supervisor: “So, you took a job on a college campus that has somewhat of a reputation for being a party school and you didn’t expect to see anything gross? Man, you are sheltered! I went to unclog a drain in a dorm last week, and I found several students having a sex party! And guess what? They didn’t even stop the whole time I was in there! Someone cleaning a surgical incision is the least of your problems!”

Maintenance Man: “College is for learning, not partying and doing gross things like what [My Name] was doing! I am going to report her to Housing for what she was doing!”

Supervisor: “Are you an idiot? You walk into an apartment without announcing yourself and actually enter the bathroom, and you are offended that a resident is cleaning a surgical incision? I am telling the maintenance manager about what you just did! He isn’t going to be happy!”

Maintenance ended up leaving for the day. I was contacted by the maintenance manager an hour later, and he was very apologetic about the whole incident.

I later found out from [Supervisor] that [Maintenance Man] was fired after he started ranting to the manager about how people shouldn’t expect privacy in on-campus housing and how people with medical needs shouldn’t be allowed to live on campus!