Home Sweet Home
Originally Thursday, September 18, 2008
I thought I'd never get out of that hospital, but I finally made it home! 8 Days...8 l-o-n-g days in that place. What an experience it was, too. For some reason, bizarre things seem to happen to me wherever I go. I guess it's so that I have interesting stories to write about. There were lots of little things that just made me laugh, but there were also terrible things that happened that I don't know if I'm ready to blog about yet. I just know I'm glad to be home. Despite the fact that ALL my plants are dead, there's no button to push when I need something (believe me, I tried!), and the floors were covered with hair from one of my dogs who decided it was time to shed his entire coat while I was gone, it's still good to be home.
At home you get to wear your own clothes, instead of some paper-thin gown that an engineer couldn't figure out how to snap and tie shut. (I had to leave one gown hanging over my IV stand for like two days because I couldn't figure out how to take it off and get the IV through). You don't have to be afraid of "vampires" that come in the middle of the night to take your blood. There are no crazy old ladies screaming. There's no incessant "beep-beep-beep"-ing. And there's no one trying to inject things into your IV that very possibly could kill you if you're not paying attention (for some reason, that's my favorite).
It's actually pretty scary the things you see in hospitals. There's the radiology tech that looked at my allergy wristband and asked if I was Mrs. "Phenergan"...priceless. Then there's the food service. They cracked me up so many times. Ok...there's this big stamp across my menu that says "NO DAIRY." So they give me sherbert. In big letters across the top of the sherbert container it says "Allergy Warning: This product contains milk." And they also have another stamp that says I'm allergic to red dyes. So they gave me green jello instead of the red that was on the menu and they cross out "cranberry juice cocktail" and give me apple juice. Ummm...what color are cranberries? I don't think we need red food dye to make the juice red. Oh well...they tried. Then this nurse recommends I eat a popsicle since my throat was irritated from a scope they'd used earlier. She asks me what color I want, and I tell her anything that doesn't have red dye. She brings me purple. I figure she never colored Easter eggs as a child, poor thing.
I really don't think that hospitals are really that conducive to actually getting better. You have to be on full alert at all times, making sure no one gives you the wrong medicine...or that they give you the right one at the right time. In my case, you have to explain your disease because they've never heard of it, and they absolutely do not know how to deal with it. The night shift people just bust into your room and turn the bright light on to take your vital signs at ungodly hours. If you had been dead, you would certainly wake up when they come into the room. And you have to muster the energy and fortitude to tell the lab tech that she absolutely cannot stick you a third time to get blood, since she missed the first two times and was digging around in your vein for 10 minutes. I'm convinced that shy people who are very weak and have no one to stay with them are basically toast in that place.
It's just so good to be home with my family, my pets, my own comfy bed that doesn't adjust itself randomly to prevent bed sores, and my filtered water that doesn't taste like you're licking a rusty nail. Everything's better at home. Except for maybe that call button. We should really look into getting one of those.
