Hospital Life

After some experience, I have developed three rules of hospital life, from the patient's point of view. Here they are:
1) If you want the doctor to come, fall asleep.
2) If you want the phone to ring, leave the room.
And finally,
3) No matter how bad a shape you are in, there is always someone else who is worse off.

I'm sure there are others, but these are the ones most pertinent to me.

In my last hospital visit, miracle of miracles, I had a single room for the first time ever (not counting some stays in the ICU). That did not keep me from hearing the life story of the guy next door who must have been hard of hearing because he spoke very loudly. (See Rule number 3.)

There was also a Physical Therapy unit on the floor. All day there was a parade of elderly people past my door, patients with knee replacements and hip replacements. It was kind of comical to see them using a walker accompanied by an attendant, followed by yet another hospital worker pushing a wheel chair to catch the patients when they got tired. It was only moderately funny, because I will be one of them some day.

The night before my surgery I was feeling restless, so I got out of bed, grabbed my IV pole and went to explore. As I walked around the floor, I was shocked at how crowded the place was, with patients in beds in the hallway. I certainly felt guilty about my single room when I saw that.

One of the nurses remarked to me that 17 times around the floor was a mile. I guess they would know that, since there was that PT unit on the floor. Well, she never should have mentioned that to me, since right away I saw it as a challenge. Darned if I didn't do my 17 laps that night! Later my knee was kind of sore and I realized that I had foolishly done my mile pounding around the floor in those little hospital footies.

So that would lead us to Rule #4: No matter how many times you are in the hospital, there is always something new to learn.