Another Hospital Event

I’ve been home for a couple of days recovering from a recent hospital stay. Two stays, actually. The first time I was sent home after three days, supposedly okay. Only I wasn’t. Two days later I was back again. A different doctor, a different diagnosis, and bingo! I’m on the road to recovery.

As one of the doctors put it, the first time they were barking up the wrong tree. That’s a medical term.

Not that spending eight days out of ten in a hospital bed isn’t relaxing and fun. Because it isn’t.

 But I will say, that with one minor exception, the staff was unfailingly cheerful. Considering the work load they’re carrying, that was amazing. And I had three roommates, all of whom turned out to be interesting, pleasant people. Again, considering that we were all in the hospital and feeling lousy, it was a nice surprise.

The worst part, other than being there I mean, was the food. My first roommate, on her third day there, announced that her lunch was tasty—the first time since she’d arrived.

I’d try to remember that the kitchen staff had a huge workload, but then I’d forget every time I looked at the newest meal tray.

One day I was given one menu to order dinner and the next day’s breakfast. In hindsight, I should have asked for a second menu, but I didn’t think it would be a problem. I circled my dinner options and put a large X by my breakfast choices. Then in very large letters on the top of the paper I printed “dinner” and circled it, and “breakfast” with an X next to it.

You’ll never guess what I got for dinner. Or maybe you will. Yep, both meals. My tray had a chicken salad sandwich and a grilled cheese sandwich. And a note saying that because of my dietary restrictions, they couldn’t give me everything I asked for. Meaning I’d asked for too much food. Seriously—no one thought that ordering two sandwiches was odd?

The hospital is adding a new building, and everyone talked about how wonderful it was going to be, especially the single rooms. Because the rooms were tiny. My theory is that when this hospital was built, the rooms didn’t seem so small because the beds weren’t big mechanical monsters, and there was less equipment in general. Every time a tech came in to check my vitals, she had to move one or two things to get the machine close enough to the bed. Then do it again for my roomie.

Even worse was when one of us had to go somewhere on a stretcher. I could walk out to the hall, but my roomie couldn’t. Everything movable had to be shifted over to my side so the stretcher could be wheeled in next to her bed. It was a lot like a scene from a slapstick movie. It even had the laugh track—provided by me, although I tried to keep it down.

The only bright spot is that home seems more wonderful than ever after an experience like this!