Cameron's Top 10 Worst and Best Lists of Hospital Stay!

[Cameron]

WORST
10. Seeing little wizened, shrunken, apple doll like figures cocooned in blankets on hospital beds being wheeled endlessly from test to test and wondering at Quality of Life issues!
9. Terminal "Bed Head".
8. Hospital gowns that appear to have been specifically designed to NOT fit any body?s shape and that leave you wandering the halls looking like a mental patient painted by El Greco.
7. Peeing in little plastic bottles and pooping in plastic buckets to satisfy the lab wizard's quest to grow a culture!
6. Looking like a veteran heroin user from all the bruises and track marks left from unrelenting blood sampling and IV site renewal.
5. Being woken up from a deep sleep to be given a sleeping pill!
4. Uncooperative, grumpy old guys who won't take their pills, won't go on their walks, who violate all the physio instructions about leaning and pulling, and who were coughing up lungs the night before being released 4-5 days post op while cooperative young and obedient you are trapped for 15 days post op!
3. Listening for the 20th time to the story of how the old fart in the next bed was on his way to the Optometrist but got breathless and came to Emergency instead - leading to his successful quadruple bypass surgery.
2. Being abandoned in hallways by Porters on the way to and from tests, looking like a Resi-Dude (old guy in wheelchair that lives in seedy residential hotel vestibules to keep warm).
1. "Sticky Sock Syndrome" from late night encounters with "Old Man Pee"! OK guys, however stable you think you are, lets just make it a rule that ALL GUYS SIT DOWN TO PEE when in hospital!

BEST
10. Your own "Bendy Bed"
9. 24 hour TV with no-one competing for the remote.
8. Unrestricted supply of cool Spider Man "Sucker Socks".
7. Unlimited team of beautiful young women who are only a call button away!
6. Being able to lie around in bed all day without anyone complaining.
5. If you are going to be sick, where better than the hospital!?
4. Not much opportunity to damage your healing sternum as long as you have mastered getting in and out of bed!
3. Can experiment "risk free" with funky scruffy facial hair.
2. Seeing that there are still kind, enthusiastic, well trained people who WANT to be in the health care business.
1. GOING HOME!

 

[Mary]

Great post, Cameron!

 

[Dale]

I'd add being woken up so the nurse can give the woman in the other bed a sleeping pill.

 

[Herburban1]

I had Johnny the vampire come in every day at 4 am and put the overhead lights on. I said "That's subtle." and I got" the Drs. have to have the results for their rounds bla bla bla." I wish I had one of those movie star eye mask to wear, sudden lights are not good for migraine people.
And what about the food gustapos crossing off things you ordered to eat? Grrr

 

[skeptic49]

Quite a comprehensive list, Cameron!

Best wishes,

Jim

 

[Bina]

For some reason the hospitals won't supply poker chips to those of us who remembered a deck of cards, but forgot the chips.
Cameron, excellent list!

 

[dick0236]

Cameron, funny, funny, funnyyyyyyyy thread. That one had to take a lot of thought. I'll be sure to watch out for "the grumpy old men" if I ever have to go back to the hospital......uh oh, I'll probably be one of them.

I'm printing your post to share with my golfing buddies. We have two mechanical, one tissue and two A-fibs w/pacemakers. They'll get a kick out of your well thought out list. Keep your sense of humor and positive attitude.

 

[axeldog]

I can't forget the 3 am x-ray that had to be done.

 

[CThrock]

Or coming in at 3am to see if you need anything.
Or the party the nurses have in the middle of the night with the laughing and talking.
Believe it or not I had a nurse come in at about 3:30am to bring me magazines to read (what the heck!!)
Great thread alot of truth in both lists.......

 

[Marguerite53]

Cameron! That was excellent!! It's great when someone can make us look back on such a stressful experience and make us laugh! Kudos to you!!

Upon reading it, it is apparent that I was truly blessed and lucky to have a private room.... just pure luck.

The only thing I would add to the 10 Worst would be..... having a guy in the room right next door with a sign on his door reading "Highly Contagious. blah blah blah" and having his doctor linger outside his/our door after examining him, lean into my room and throw his gloves away in my trash can! I buzzed the nurse SO FAST and got that trash taken out and a sign on MY door to keep it closed!

Adding to the best would be unlimited games of uninterrupted Solitaire and groovy iPod music. Ahhhhhh. Just zone out.

Good to have you back, Cameron. Now how about some more photographs while you are recouperating?

Marguerite

 

[sheridan07]

Funny list. Is this what I got to look forward too?

 

[Bina]

Oh yes....the 11 pm shift change for nurses......yak, yak, yakkity, yak.

 

[njean]

...or the same nurse coming in umteen times a night to get your vitals & forgetting to turn the lights off when he/she left!! I hated this!!!!

 

[Bina]

Norma, couldn't you throw something at her head?
I actually had a couple of nurses come in with flashlights.....so nice.

 

[njean]

Norma, couldn't you throw something at her head?
I actually had a couple of nurses come in with flashlights.....so nice.

It crossed my mind believe me but then on second thought.......if that same nurse walked in later with an evil look in her eye & said, "it's time for your injection, hee, hee"......yikes!

 

[hall]

Funny! You can go on Letterman with your top 10 lists. Yours are better than his! Thanks for sharing!

 

[WilliamJE]

Funny list. Is this what I got to look forward too?

Oh yes and more

A respiratory person comes in to give you a breathing treatment every six hours. One of those visits is always in the middle of the night when you need a 'sleep treatment' more.

Get sent to the floor from CICU and they remove your catheter right away only to see you have to go back to CICU and have it put back in! Next time I'm going to ask to be anesthetized first.

If you're desperately hungry after either having to fast or come off something in your throat, food will take over an hour to get to your room and stands a good chance of being inedible.

Have at least one hospital staffer that no matter how often you say. 'Please close the door all the way' will leave the door partially open every time.

A PCA will turn on light and come into the room to make all important note on wall chart between 3-4 a.m. of course.

At least once a day there will be a mistake in your food service tray.

Leaving a tube in patient's throat for 24 hours isn't a real good idea since when they wake they'll need large amounts of water to wash anything down they try to eat and you're trying to limit their liquids at the same time. It's a recipe for pneumonia, which is what I came down with.

Sarcasm aside, my nurses and people caring for me at JFK were pretty good in most cases.

 

[Teresa]

Have read this twice-so funny! Welcome home and thanks for the laugh!

 

[BDMc]

Cameron, Nice post! I had good luck with the roommates, a man in his seventies before, and a woman about sixty after the surgery, then a fityish guy who was preop for bypass the last few days. I was in three rooms not counting ICU (2 days because there were no beds in step down) during my stay, the last of which was directly across from the nurses station. They never thought to lower their voices at night, and I couldn't wait to get out of there. Another clear memory for me, was the first time I went into the bathroom. I heard this ticking like a faucet dripping, or a clock. It wasn't a faucet, and my watch was downstairs in the safe... my new valve. Sometimes happiness is ticking.