Be careful what you ask for - you just might get it!
This is the phrase that ran through my head over and over again as out hospital stay commenced. We got to our room around 7:00 and the first thing I noticed is that we were right across from the nursing station. OK. No problem, I'm sure. It will be fine.
The playroom was closed and we had already eaten so we just settled in. The challenge of am impromptu stay like ours is whether or not to unpack everything or wait until morning to see if we would be discharged before lunch. Having in the past vacillated in this no man's land for days at a time, I went ahead and unpacked just to have done with it. Seven o'clock is shift change for the nurses so there's a lot of hubbub and general fuss, but we're used to that. I made my bed - blankets and sheets spread over a bench under the window, and we got Daniel into jammies. Another thrill of hospital life is watching movies in bed so I told Daniel he could watch a movie while he fell asleep. But he didn't fall asleep. Finally around 10:00 I just asked the nurse to please turn it off after he was asleep and I went to bed. Tired. Mama.
And thus our night began . . . The nurse was a super sweet gal - no complaints there - but unfortunately, how to say, she did not have the skill of doing her job quietly. She was in and out a couple of times but the TV was still on at 11:30 so I got up and turned it off. After that it seemed like someone was in our room every 45 minutes the whole night. Thankfully they didn't turn on the overhead lights (as we have experienced in the past), but every entrance was announced with a slam on the door handle, all garbage was crackly-crumpled before it was thrust into our large garbage can the lid of which was then allowed to crash down . . . Then I would juuuuust about get back to sleep when the relentlessly squeaky vitals cart would limp in, the blood pressure cuff would do its buzz-click-buzz, and the door would slam shut again. Lord??
I lay on my bed thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember this. Not a vacation resort quite so much as a place of torture where sleep is sadistically not permitted! OK, Lord, you win. I got what I squalled about and now I'm paying the piper. I am ever so sorry that I fussed!! Um, OK, so now can she please not slam that door again?"
This was the conversation that played in my head from 12:00 - 2:30 (since, what the heck? I wasn't sleeping anyway!) but around 2:30 with every slam, bang, crackly-crump I started getting mad. The conversation became, "Are you absolutely kidding me?!!!!! I know this is your day time, Honey, but did you know that I did day time already and I'm getting ready to do it again very soon?? Did you know there are two people in this room who are trying to sleep?! Are you even serious about slamming that trash can again? Do you delight in the sound of that trash being crunched up because, I assure you, I am not delighted!!" I'm sure at any point I could have asked her to please be quieter or get a vitals cart that didn't squeak but I was so exhausted and mad I did not trust myself to even speak. Yeah, OK, my fault. Finally I abandoned the idea of sleeping and lay in bed mentally formulating lesson plans for a nurses' in-service I could offer to teach - Nursing Well While Others Sleep. Oh yeah, I could totally teach that!!
Anyway, that went on literally all night long until at 5:00 a.m. a doctor tip-toed in ever so carefully and then . . . wait for it . . . threw on the overhead light! Shooting through the fog of exhausted half-sleep I sat bolt upright in bed (bench?) as all the aggravation of the past 8 hours came positively flying out of my mouth in 3 words wrapped thick with a tone completely foreign to even my own ears: "Oh my GOSH!!" Daniel woke up with a start, and our day had begun! I wanted to cry. Or hit someone. Or both.
We had our talk with the doc (sans violence - phew!) and immediately as she was leaving the room a powerful sensation came over me and, uh oh. Oh NO! I had to make a flying RUN to the bathroom where it became very plain in a hurry that I had . . . wait for it . . . the flu!
Ha ha ha. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!! Oh my goodness I felt absolutely terrible but inside I was laughing to beat the band:
Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it!! And oh how I had "gotten it".
To Be Continued . . . (last one, I promise!)
This is the phrase that ran through my head over and over again as out hospital stay commenced. We got to our room around 7:00 and the first thing I noticed is that we were right across from the nursing station. OK. No problem, I'm sure. It will be fine.
The playroom was closed and we had already eaten so we just settled in. The challenge of am impromptu stay like ours is whether or not to unpack everything or wait until morning to see if we would be discharged before lunch. Having in the past vacillated in this no man's land for days at a time, I went ahead and unpacked just to have done with it. Seven o'clock is shift change for the nurses so there's a lot of hubbub and general fuss, but we're used to that. I made my bed - blankets and sheets spread over a bench under the window, and we got Daniel into jammies. Another thrill of hospital life is watching movies in bed so I told Daniel he could watch a movie while he fell asleep. But he didn't fall asleep. Finally around 10:00 I just asked the nurse to please turn it off after he was asleep and I went to bed. Tired. Mama.
And thus our night began . . . The nurse was a super sweet gal - no complaints there - but unfortunately, how to say, she did not have the skill of doing her job quietly. She was in and out a couple of times but the TV was still on at 11:30 so I got up and turned it off. After that it seemed like someone was in our room every 45 minutes the whole night. Thankfully they didn't turn on the overhead lights (as we have experienced in the past), but every entrance was announced with a slam on the door handle, all garbage was crackly-crumpled before it was thrust into our large garbage can the lid of which was then allowed to crash down . . . Then I would juuuuust about get back to sleep when the relentlessly squeaky vitals cart would limp in, the blood pressure cuff would do its buzz-click-buzz, and the door would slam shut again. Lord??
I lay on my bed thinking, "Oh yeah, I remember this. Not a vacation resort quite so much as a place of torture where sleep is sadistically not permitted! OK, Lord, you win. I got what I squalled about and now I'm paying the piper. I am ever so sorry that I fussed!! Um, OK, so now can she please not slam that door again?"
This was the conversation that played in my head from 12:00 - 2:30 (since, what the heck? I wasn't sleeping anyway!) but around 2:30 with every slam, bang, crackly-crump I started getting mad. The conversation became, "Are you absolutely kidding me?!!!!! I know this is your day time, Honey, but did you know that I did day time already and I'm getting ready to do it again very soon?? Did you know there are two people in this room who are trying to sleep?! Are you even serious about slamming that trash can again? Do you delight in the sound of that trash being crunched up because, I assure you, I am not delighted!!" I'm sure at any point I could have asked her to please be quieter or get a vitals cart that didn't squeak but I was so exhausted and mad I did not trust myself to even speak. Yeah, OK, my fault. Finally I abandoned the idea of sleeping and lay in bed mentally formulating lesson plans for a nurses' in-service I could offer to teach - Nursing Well While Others Sleep. Oh yeah, I could totally teach that!!
Anyway, that went on literally all night long until at 5:00 a.m. a doctor tip-toed in ever so carefully and then . . . wait for it . . . threw on the overhead light! Shooting through the fog of exhausted half-sleep I sat bolt upright in bed (bench?) as all the aggravation of the past 8 hours came positively flying out of my mouth in 3 words wrapped thick with a tone completely foreign to even my own ears: "Oh my GOSH!!" Daniel woke up with a start, and our day had begun! I wanted to cry. Or hit someone. Or both.
We had our talk with the doc (sans violence - phew!) and immediately as she was leaving the room a powerful sensation came over me and, uh oh. Oh NO! I had to make a flying RUN to the bathroom where it became very plain in a hurry that I had . . . wait for it . . . the flu!
Ha ha ha. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!! HA HA HA HA HA!!! Oh my goodness I felt absolutely terrible but inside I was laughing to beat the band:
Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it!! And oh how I had "gotten it".
To Be Continued . . . (last one, I promise!)
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