Peace and quiet so one can sleep are essential to the healing process. There are quite a few people in this thread who said they couldn’t sleep. No wonder patients are grouchy. Hospitals are set up for the convenience of staff, not for patient healing. It’s a huge problem in our so-called system.
And I think all doctors and nurses should experience an NG tube as part of their training. Maybe then they wouldn’t have constantly yanked on mine! Holy shit. Except for my gigantic abdominal surgery, I’ve never felt pain like that.
You’ve heard of Olympic skier Picabo (pronounced “peekaboo”) Street? Not too many people know that she worked in an intensive care unit. But they had to let her go. She kept answering the phones with, “Picabo, ICU.”
I always wonder what it would be like, especially nowadays when dropping off the grid for 5-10 business days sounds like a mythically unrealistic fantasy.
No idea, I haven’t been hospitalized since I was eleven months old. My dad’s mom picked up an infection in the hospital that ultimately killed her, so the whole idea makes me a bit nervous.
My ex housemate is like this. She has serious issues arising from a bad car accident a few years ago which was rendered her unable to work. She also has very bad asthma which veers into pneumonia in the winter, which is what happened to her back in January.
She had her own private room at our local hospital. She had her treatments and two days later she was told she was stable enough to return home.
Oh no, she wasn’t. No, you’re wrong. I’m still very weak, she told the nurses. Please do another round of tests.
They refused to retest her and the doctor showed her the results. A few hours later she was told to vacate the room because “somebody with more serious issues than yours” needed it.
I’d rather be in a hotel over a hospital. On the one hand, I get what the OP is saying - being alone and quiet is nice - but I’d far prefer having a comfy bed and a pretty bathroom rather than a bed that keeps randomly inflating (depending upon the issue) and a hospital bathroom. I also now associate hospitals with my mom’s most recent illnesses, one of which involved her shitting herself frequently and me helping her change her adult diapers and pants (when she wore them). The other had her hallucinating and shouting driving directions at me for HOURS from the bathroom and hospital bed. I had to pretend to drive for nearly four hours one day to keep her calm.
They’re also required to “lay eyes” on you every hour depending on the hospital, so your sleep is rarely uninterrupted. I’m actually going to be with her in the hospital Monday and Tuesday because she’s having surgery.
I am a pretty functional adult, but no matter what I’m doing there are always those voices in the back of my mind that are like “You still have a million things to do” or “You should be doing XYZ instead of ABC.” A hospital stay quiets those voices because your activity options are severely narrowed. As weird as it sounds I think I totally understand the OP.
My last visit, an overnight stay, was pretty fun. I was hooked up to a Dilaudid pump and tapping the button like it was a telegraph key, which may have played a small role.
Thirty-three years ago when my second son was born, mother and baby, even healthy ones, still got a five-day stay in the hospital. Other than being sore, I felt pretty good. I didn’t have my two year old to care for, and interaction with my newborn was all fun - playing and feeding. People brought me good things to eat and gifts, oohed and aahed over my infant and my bestie even sent our mutual stylist over to do my hair so I would look nice in pictures. No one woke me 20 times a night to ask if I was sleeping well, no one took blood from me, I had no annoying tests, and only had to endure a quick look over by the doctor to make sure I was peeing ok.As hospital stays go, that was a good 'un.
I haven’t been in a hospital overnight since I was 15, when I was hit by a car. But I was just in for a few hours yesterday for a procedure, and what I liked was that they give you a heated blanket and, when that one cools down, they bring you another one. I recall that, when I had my lumpectomy a few years ago, they provided warmed blankets then too. It’s a small thing, but comforting in a chilly and impersonal environment.
But when you’re just coming to from the anesthesia and want to go on sleeping for awhile, they insist on making you wake up.
I’ve only been in a hospital overnight once in my memory (might have stayed overnight when I got my tonsils out, but I don’t remember) and found it to be a reasonably pleasant couple of days.
First, I had been feeling unwell for a while, and it was relieving to be finally doing something about it. Second, the place I was working was falling apart and tensions were high to the point that nearly anything was better than the office. The food was tasty too and the Wifi was fast.
Finally, it became understood pretty early on that I had a painful but minor issue instead of the heart issues I was worried about. In fact, I found out that my heart health was not only not a problem, but that things looked unexpectedly excellent for a mid-40s guy with marginal exercise habits. My wife hoped that the stay would be a wake-up call that would lead to a fitness epiphany, but what I got was validation that I was on the golden path.
I found the operational aspects of the hospital fascinating to observe. I had been spending altogether too much time in the previous couple of years spending time in the hospital as my father’s health declined, but that was a super-focused, stressful experience. My visit was entirely relaxing.
edit: except for the nitroglycerin in the ER. I think a heart attack might actually be preferable.
It depends on the hospital and whether it was planned or not - emergencies are always going to be awful.
As a kid I spent three months in a hospital due to asthma (I had and have very bad asthma). I came from a horrible home, so appreciated having heating, showers, no abuse, etc, but to be honest it wasn’t just that - there were several other long-standing kids and we had a fantastic time finding ways to entertain ourselves. I think we all enjoyed it to some level. The food was fine, just in portions for an elderly woman recovering from an operation rather than for growing kids; we got in trouble a lot for sneaking into the nurses’ staff room to make toast and hiding packs of crisps in our lockers.
At the same age I spent a few weeks in a solitary room on an adult ward (private room because I was a child) and it drove me mad. The nurse would come in and turn the radio to Radio 1 for me, how kind. Then leave it on. They play the same songs all day and it wasn’t anywhere I could get at it hooked up to a mask for most of the day when I wasn’t either being tested, showering or whatever. Couldn’t wear glasses (in order to read) with the mask so all I had was that bloody radio.
As an adult it’s varied - I spent one night, planned, at the sleep clinic at St Thomas’s hospital. The view is to die for - two windows entirely taken up with the Houses Parliament. And since I had notice I was able to get child and pet care. I’d been working a lot at the time and it felt like a holiday.
A couple of years later I was in the Royal London for a ministroke and it felt like my ward was a punishment ward. It’s a hospital that has had a public-private finance refurbishment that makes it much worse for patients than before. My bed area was acknowledged to be so overheated that they couldn’t rely on my temperature records because it might just have been that I was overheating due to the extreme temperature - it was like a sauna. And they knew that that particular area was like that, it wasn’t just me. I spent the night naked and covered in sweat having heat-induced nightmares. And while I was glad to have back-up plans for my daughter and pets they are never as good as planned sitters.
When staying in hospital with my ex while the baby was born there were the usual labour ward issues of noise and light (tons of both) but for me also the fact that there was no chair. I was there for two nights due to a long labour and I’m disabled. There was a broken chair and that was supposed to be enough. Leaving wasn’t really an option and not just for obvious reasons of emotional support - I was expected to do lots of things like help her check her stats (early stages only) and get food for her, help her to the toilet, etc. I went to the local supermarket five times within 24 hours for things they’d asked me to get that weren’t on the list to take to hospital (like bedpads - to go on the bed and soak up amniotic fluid). And it felt so stupid to moan about my own pain when my ex was actually having a painful labour that I didn’t make a complaint.
So no, you’re not alone, but it isn’t surprising that most people don’t agree.
