Paranoia and other pleasant things

Like a cat with hemorrhoids at a yiffy convention

I know I haven’t written anything lately. Sorry Internet. I’m writing now, see?

So .. hospitals. And my phobia of them.

Not a phobia of the building per se. I go inside Neuro and Psychiatry wards every day to see the bedridden patients with a real smile on my face . Heck, I even walk the corridors of the big concrete block where the rest of the County Hospital is located without breaking in hives.

It’s all about being admitted in one. You get there in the morning, your bag packed with PJs, shampoo, toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, towels, underwear, chocolates and coffee for the cleaning ladies, 5/10 lei bills for the nurses, a few heavy envelopes for the docs, something to read and a telephone card, if you’re one of the freaks that don’t own yet a mobile, like I am.

You go into a small dark room where an angry granny directs you to undress behind a locker’s door, along with the other three ladies already undressing behind their respective locker doors. You put on your pyjamas, give her your clothes and she gets a cleaning lady to help you with the bag. You get the mandatory elevator ride from a liftiera even if you’re perfectly capable of walking on the stairs. You’re directed to your bed in a room with 1-9 other people, depending on how much money the first envelope you gave contained, you say goodbye to your family on the hall and then ..you’re on your own.

The day in the hospital consists of getting up at 5:30-6 when the nurses come to give the first round of pills/ injections/ whatever. Around 8 you’re woken up again to have your temperature taken. Urine samples will be requested from you / your kid even if you’re there because your kid put a piece of rubber toy up her nose and she’s just under observation for the day (our case) . After that, hunger sets in so you either try your luck with hospital food (macaroni with bread crumbs / macaroni with unsalted cottage cheese/ macaroni with potatoes were my three personal experiences)or go with what Mom/ the husband brought you. Since the hospital food resembles wallpaper glue with unidentifiable lumps in it, it’s wise to do the second.

After breakfast, comes a long, boring succession of discussions with the roommate(s), trips to the sink, reading whatever book you brought with you, looking out the window, getting your medicines, occasional snackings, trips to the toilet, visits from the family and more looking out the window. Oh, and the doc’s visit (”And how are we feeling today?” *Insert anything from “Just ducky” to “I coughed out my spline 5 minutes ago, the liver seems to be next”* “Mmhmm, good, good”) In the end you go to bed only to be woken up, invariably, two hours later to get your medicine/ be poked with something. Lather, rinse, repeat

It’s not the very idea of hospital that brings me down . It’s the small details - the constant wearing of PJs, the fact that the bloody light has to stay on all night in the hall, and the upper part of the wall has been replaced with glass, so that it shines in your eyes. The never ending poking. The condescendence with which your questions about the medication, the actual diagnosis and the length of your staying there are met. That oh-so-shy “why, you shouldn’t have” said when you give the chocolate/ banknote/ envelope and the following attitude change. The big, fat cockroaches you see on the wall when you’re woken up for poking, lazily fleeing from the light under your bed. The too high beds when you have an abdominal incision, and no stool anywhere. The bathrooms full of smokers. The crushing lack of care non-envelope giving people get.The lack of sleep. The lack of dignity.

Somewhere in the next two years I’ll go back there to bring kid 2 to this world. The title of the post describes accurately my feelings about this perspective.

Posted under: hospital