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This week: Hospitals are Scary! Edited by: Sophurky  
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| Hi, I'm Sophurky ~ your editor for this edition of the Comedy Newsletter. |
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Hospitals are Scary
Since my last edition of the Comedy Newsletter (Sept. 3), I have been in the hospital twice, for a total of 7 days. Thus no Comedy Newsletter from me on Oct. 1. (Note: I was in the hospital a total of 5 nights, so the hospital and my insurance company considered my stays a "2 day" and a "3 day" visit. But since I was admitted around noon each time and did not get released until about noon each time, I counted half days as full days because, well, it was hell and seemed like an eternity!)
Anyway, it was the most miserable "7" days of my life for a number of reasons, outlined below...
Hospitals are NOT restful. I was very sick during my first trip to the hospital, and was sent to a room in the "Comprehensive Care Unit" from the ER. CCU used to mean "Critical Care Unit." It still is that, frankly - they just think "comprehensive" sounds less terrifying, I guess. My blood count was very low, as was my blood pressure, and my heart rate was high. After they ruled out a heart attack and diagnosed the problem, I was monitored constantly by the vigilant nursing staff. My blood pressure, temp, and pulse-ox rate were checked about every hour or so, and my blood was taken often to check my hemoglobin. Never at the same time, mind you. So while they told me to "rest" so I would get better, they made it impossible. Just as I would doze off they would come in to take my vitals. Then if I managed to doze off in the next 30 minutes, one of the blood suckers would be there. One would think they could get the timing down better and do all of the pokes and prods at the same time, so one could at least get a little bit of sleep. But no. And this wasn't just in the daytime - they came in the dark of night and woke me from sound sleeps to make sure I was still ticking. And don't even get me started on how uncomfortable the beds are.
Hospitals are germ factories. Soon after I was moved to my CCU room, the intake nurse came in to ask me all sorts of questions (all of which I had answered in the ER, where the answers were typed into a computer - you'd think they could just check the notes from an hour earlier!) and to give me a test for MRSA (aka Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus - an infection caused by a strain of staph bacteria that's become resistant to antibiotics). It was an easy test, the easiest of the bunch actually. Just a nasal swab. Fortunately I did not have MRSA (at that time anyway - who knows now). We discussed how rampant MRSA has become in hospitals, and the protocols to keep it from spreading further (religious use of hand sanitizer every time someone entered or exited my room, for one). I asked her how often the nurses were tested for MRSA (assuming, of course, they would have regular testing since they work with sick people in hospitals, many of whom have MRSA). She said never, because if tests came up positive then the hospital would have to pay to treat it. So basically I entered the hospital without MRSA, but who knows if I exited without it!
Hospitals must have vampire connections. Why else do they take so much blood, so often? And from someone who entered the hospital with only half as much blood as I was supposed to! My poor arms were bruised and battered from both hospital stays, all courtesy of the lab techs. One morning, and by morning I mean 3am, a sweet young thing took a look at my arms and the look of terror on my face and said, "You know, we don't need much blood for a hemoglobin test - I could just prick your finger." I almost cried with relief and said "yes please!" and then asked her why the other ghouls lab techs did not just use my finger. She said the younger ones were taught to do them, and that they are especially useful with babies and kids - but the old school techs don't like to do them for some reason (I believe it is because they are sadists). After finding out that no, she could not in fact be my personal blood tech person for the remainder of my stay (something about needing to go home and sleep every once in a while), I decided that if I were to enter the hospital again for any reason, I would demand to be put on the pediatrics floor.
Hospital food sucks. It is kind of cool, that from 7am to 7pm, you can pick up the phone and dial "room service" and 20 minutes later someone brings your food. And you can go crazy and order anything you want off the menu, if you are not on a restricted diet, which I was briefly but then they let me eat from the full menu. What is not cool is that the food pretty much sucks, at least in the hospital where I stayed. What also sucks is that service stops at 7pm. What kind of room service is that? Room service for Amish? Sometimes I got hungry at 8pm. Or 10pm - pretty much anytime one of the nurses or lab techs woke me up. But nope, no food service available. For 12 whole hours! Which I know - I said the food was awful. But one will eat awful food if one is hungry enough, trust me. During one of my stays I was not allowed anything to eat or drink until after 9pm - when the good news came that I could, in fact, have something to eat, room service was closed. Thank goodness for Mr. Sophy bringing me food from the outside a few times, otherwise I might not have survived!
Now that I am on the road to recovery, having managed to stay home and out of the hospital for almost 3 weeks now (knock on wood) I have decided that I am going to volunteer to make my hospital a better experience, less scary, and more healing for patients. The problem is, medical people are in charge of the whole show. What they need is actual people who have been PATIENTS to be in charge of the hospital. Believe me, I have great ideas, and that evaluation form they sent me is going to have lots of extra pages attached! 
Until next time,
Sophurky
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Now for some comments about my last newsletter "Comedy Newsletter (September 3, 2014)" about "60 Days of 60:"
From LJPC - the tortoise 
Hi Sophy! That was a great idea to celebrate your sister's birthday! She loved it and you saved time and money - truly a win-win.
~ Laura
And fun too!
    
From River 
Wow! sounds like a fun idea for turning 60. I turned 62 in June, so guess I'll have to wait for the 7-0. 
My moving date is now Sept. 10th, things got delayed a bit. You have me wondering about neighbours, I hope to avoid mine. I'm not anti-social, just want to be able to sit outside with a cup of coffee, in peace.
Why wait until 70? You could have 63 days of 63 next summer!
As for my new neighbors - recently our lawn mower quit in the middle of mowing, and our next-door neighbors (the starers) loaned us theirs to finish the job. So I guess we should not judge a neighbor by their staring?
That's all for this month - see you next time! ~ Sophurky |
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Comedy: October 29, 2014 Issue [#6628]
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