Two and a half days

Two and a half days

I was recently released after spending two and a half days in the hospital for severe diarrhea.  The cause was diagnosed (an infection in my colon) and treatment has started. I am grateful to the people who took very good care of me. 

I was struck by the experience of adapting to the 24 hour, 7 day a week schedule of the hospital as an institution.   It took from 10: 00 AM one day to 2:00 AM the following day to get into the hospital.  I spent an additional two hours in Admission before I was sent to a room.  Because of my symptoms I was kept off food and water for more than two days.  I’m not complaining; medically it was the correct way to go.        I slept only briefly and rarely. So I had time to examine the system. 

At first, being quite unsteady on my feet, I wore a contraption between my knees and my feet that I felt was based on a Victorian dream of punishing bedwetting children.  Balloons inflated on one leg hissed and deflated as balloons inflated on the other leg.  Afterward I was told that the device presented blot clots in a bedridden patient.  Again medically sound.

People working in the hospital had individual schedules. As a patient, I was aware when four hours passed by the arrival of someone to take my vital signs or a blood sample.  Which four of any twenty-four hour period was often unclear to me. The clock might read 11:00.  Was that in the morning or at night?  I could tell morning from night, but I might have had a very busy day before 10:00 in the morning.  Starting at 4:30 AM, people would come around to check on me.  There was the surgery group, the GI group and the medical group. People came individually or in clumps.

I always appreciated their interest.  They also gave me something to think about.  I was on an IV pump that became alarmed if I did not keep my left arm straight.  When I was prone with one arm immobile, there were a very small number of things I could do.  I could ask for assistance with something tricky like toileting.  I could stare at the ceiling.  I could let the television drone on. If it was daytime, I could talk to my wife, Judy. Or I could think. 

I tried to not listen to the people around me.  I was unable to avoid hearing a discussion between physicians about when to label a patient as advanced level three as opposed to level four. Apparently if you use level four too early in the process then you might have to explain to an insurance provider why the patient is not yet dead.  One patient admitted to a room much too close to mine moaned for hours between bouts of paranoid raving (I will call down the wrath of hell from room...)  That patient preferred to avoid the call button in favor of bellowing, “Nurse, nurse.” 

I thought about a story I wanted to write. I developed a flash fiction version, a noir black and white movie script, and a convoluted novel approach.  I don’t know if I will actually write up the story.  I may need an expanded mental exercise again.

When I returned home I felt as though I had been gone for an extended period of time.  It was only two and a half days but it feels like longer than a week. 

Have you had a similar experience?