The One Where I Rant About the Hospital

First and foremost, I LOVE MY NURSES.  They are the best people on earth and keep me alive, sane, fed, entertained and laughing through this ordeal.  Just the other day, one of them decided it was backwards day, so everything was backwards in my whole room for the day.  Why, Why not?

I never tried to keep track of how many nights I have spent in the hospital this year, it didn't seem important.  Roughly, it has been between 60 and 70.  In those two and a half months I have learned, slowly of the idiosyncrasies of this hospital.  It is one of the best in this area, no doubt about that.  I've always had a private room and no unreasonable problems.  All of these complaints are merely cumulative, and just frustrate me because I have spent so much time here.  Last August when the kidney came out, I couldn't speak more highly.  I'm just worn out at this point.

Anywhere you are forced to stay for that many nights not by choice will wear on you.  And it has.  Here is my rant:

The air is dry and stale.  Once I have been here for a few hours, the hospital smell permeates everything I have brought with me.  Though the smell is clean, it is so sterile it makes you gag.  The air is so dry, SO dry.  All of my medications dehydrate me, then there is this dry air, my mouth and skin feel like paper and there is no amount of lotion that can help. Thermostats are also peculiarly ineffective here.  There are two ways in each room to set the thermostat, on the wall and on the tv menu, neither of which seem to work.  Tuesday I just resorted to wearing three shirts and two hats, now I have on flip flops and a tank top.  Something doesn't add up.

There are a mass of machines in my room that are on at all times.  Beeps, clicks and lights hover around my face at all times of the day and night.  Since they get to leave the room, no one remembers to shut off the dang blood pressure cuff so it doesn't beep every minute.  The pump that feeds me medication clicks every thirty seconds, and that is for each medication, sometimes I am getting three at once.  Computers screens are left on all night, right by my face.  It is like sleeping next to a Vegas Marquee.

A hospital is a 24 hour business, I am not a 24 hour person.  Though I am 33 years old, I have a bed time, and a time I like to get up in the morning.  The hospital does not care.    If they want to know my blood pressure at two am, the come in turn the lights on and take it, every four hours if I get someone who doesn't know me or is new to their job.  FYI, yes some of my medications can effect my blood pressure, but it has been consistently 110/65 for the past 13 months.  Today, my weight was needed at 4am.  Why that couldn't wait until I got up at 7:30am, I have no idea.  I understand being awoken for scheduled medications and emergencies, but these vital sign checks on a patient they know so well, and so consistently are redundant and unnecessary. I've taken to drawing a cute picture of me sleeping with a funny saying like "Don't wake the princess" and putting it on my door when I go to bed.  When I include a time I am likely to get up, it is honored for the most part until the morning rush.

And then there is the concept of morning.  I have never claimed to be a morning person, especially given my life in theater, I am much more of a night person.  Morning is defined by the rising of the sun to me, anything before the sun is night.  I have famously said many times I only get up before the sun for Disneyland, so where is my Mickey pancake?  Lab work is usually drawn between 5 and 6 am, to get all the current patients through before surgeries start at 8am.  This is usually before the sun comes up, and therefore is night to me.   Morning shift nurses start at 8am, so before they arrive, night shift nurses need to give you all their end of shift checks, meds and breakfast before the morning shift arrives.  In the 'morning' there is a flurry of activity, labs, meds, vitals, trash pickup, volunteers checking room supplies, cleaners.  Guys!  I'm here all day, you can come back in the afternoon when no one comes for hours.  It doesn't all need to be done before 9am.

I forgot about Lew!  Lew is my IV pole, I have to take him everywhere I go, everywhere.  There is tubing attaching Lew to my port, and then a cord attaching Lew's pump to the wall, so I have about an eight foot radius of movement.  When I walk down the hall, I have one hand pushing Lew.  When I arrive each Monday, the first thing I do is seek out the IV pole with the best wheels, not ones that stick like the lame shopping carts, then I hunt down a pump that doesn't squeak.  At night I have to make sure not to tangle myself in the IV tubing that connects me to Lew, this will cause my pump alarm to go off and my medications not to flow.  When I am at home, un attached, I still swat the phantom IV lines away.  I am sure many years from now I will still want to push an invisible pole down the hall in front of me much like John McCain still feels chained to that Korean POW camp.

There is no such thing as privacy in a hospital.  I have a door and curtain that close, they do not lock.  We all know I am a very open person, so I generally leave my door and curtain open, I make friends with people in the hallway, it helps pass the time.  But when I do close the door or curtain, or go to the bathroom, I'd like my privacy honored.  A knock, maybe try back later, just a little respect.  The doors to the bathroom unlock from the outside for safety.  Again, I am an ambulatory (mobile and lucid) patient, if I'm in the bathroom when you come in my room, I am using the bathroom!  Let me pee in peace.  Not to mention, my urine is collected and measured and I have to alert the nurses when I have a bowel movement and sometimes discuss its consistency.  It makes me feel inhuman.  There is no such thing as privacy in a hospital.

I've saved the best for last, food.  Let's start by talking about the water.  Something is going on in the pipes here, the water tastes very metallic.  Chemo is known to mess with your taste buds and create odd flavors, metal is a common complaint, so I thought it was just me.  Then I tasted the water when I first arrived before meds a few months ago, nope, still tasted like metal.  Shac and other friends drank it commenting on the odd taste.  So now I just bring my own large bottles of water for each stay.  Forgive me, but in a healthcare institution where people are trying to get better, don't you think reliable drinking water should be at the top of the list for patient rights?  This brings us to food.  It is not that the food here is bad, its just that it is uneventful.  If you were staying a night or two, no problem.  Again, I'm somewhere close to 70.  There are choices, consistency and even desserts.  In the bay area I was surprised to see so little international flavor, that was disappointing.  It is institutional food, carefully packaged and portioned, and grey.  Luckily there is a fridge available to me, and my lovely husband and family bring me food daily.  Before I come in, I stock up on snacks I can keep in my room and pre make dinners for a few days so I have things available when I get hungry.

Ok, that's it.  I'm done ranting.  I'm sorry I had to do it, but it needed to be said.