Hospital life

In this blog I pick up where I left off on my May 6 post to offer a view of hospital life. Let’s face it, staying in the hospital for 14 days is no picnic. Each day I felt progressively weaker. Aside from loss of appetite and the combined effect of many drugs, my weakness was heightened by multiple surgeries during which I lost quite a bit of blood. One thing that keeps you going in the hospital is the relentless routine. A nurse comes to check your vitals every so often day or night. Nurses come and go all day and night to administer medicine change the IV, etc. The first nurse to visit each morning is the one who draws the daily blood sample. This is done very early so that the surgeons and doctors have a report of your blood statistics before they visit you. The only things that are not on a rigid schedule are visits from various specialists – breathing experts, rehabilitation experts – and the doctors. They come by whenever they get a chance and catch you awake, reasonably alert, and not otherwise indisposed. Sometimes you don’t want to see them but you know that they are there to help so you suck it up and try to do what they ask. During my long stay I was blessed with excellent nurses, doctors, and other specialists. Once or twice I disagreed with a nurse’s decision about a change to my medication but usually s/he would listen to my concerns and maybe even take my requests. Often I was so mixed up in the head from drugs, pain, and fatigue that I felt a lot like this little boy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwrbYGrs