Musings
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Normal day.
5:45 am. Time for taking blood. 6:00 am blood pressure and temperature. 7:00 nurse arrives and scans your bracelet. Gets your medicines. Administers. 7:30 breakfast lady brings coffee and dry toast, like melba, with jam. Activity levels in halls ratchet up. 8:00 they come remake or change your bed and wash you some. Around 8:30 a gaggle of medical students comes and hears about the cases. PT person comes around this time too. Lunch arrives around 12 – 12:30. Afternoon is more random. More bracelet scans and meds. Coffee break in late afternoon. Dinner comes around 7pm. After dinner more scans and night meds. Ta da. Day is done.
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I contemplated the Italian word for pain, dolore. Or painful, dolorosso. I looked up an ache. Dolore. Hmmm. Seems like they should have that distinction. Fa male means it hurts. Male is the word for bad. Pronounced mah-lay.
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Some people who stood out. Dr. Pain, the first physical therapist. Nurse Ratchet, evil morning nurse who does meds. Sr. Huffinpuff – he does stuff like move beds, bring dinner, move trash bins out, stuff like that. He constantly sighs and pants while doing his work. One blond nurse who was kind and gave me a sleeping pill one night. The nurse who complained I peed too much. Dr. Trinchese, my surgeon. I call him the stealth surgeon. I saw him in the OR and then he did a drive by visit that lasted at most 15 seconds. “Come stai. Bend your leg. Lift your leg. Belissimo” and gone.
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Random thoughts and observations
Full time monks inhabit the hospital, gliding down the hallways.
Bringing your own coffee cup is key.
Bring cutlery.
Some hospitals do not provide toilet paper. I was told I was in a posh hospital because it did provide it.
They move you around in your bed for procedures.
Some nurses are tolerant of my bad Italian, many are not.
In my opinion the food is pretty bad. They try. You get three courses. Not sure if that’s a plus or minus. Bring salt, pepper, olive oil, lemon juice, Tabasco, anything to spice it up. Next time (hopefully a long time off!!) I would not order all the courses each meal. Breakfast is a cup of your favorite drink (not wine) and a packet of dry toast (like Melba) with a container of jam.
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Stay tuned for Part 3.