Over the past 25 years i have had the dubious pleasure of spending a lot of time in various hospitals for various reasons. (The late 90's were not kind to me.) Two of these stays were in small hospitals on Long Island and the remainder have been spread across three different hospitals here in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach Gardens.
Each hospital is unique for its personal types of torture.
Let me start by saying that Nurses are the true Angels on Earth and why anyone would ever consider subjecting themselves to this job is beyond me. They are over worked and under paid and their hands are tied by administrative nonsense. These poor people have to put up with human kind at its worst and still remain professional and kind.
But they do get some satisfaction from the idiotic practices of many of the hospitals. Revenge is sweet !
The first inhuman hospital joke is the whole idea of inserting an IV as soon as you enter the front door. (You don't even have to be a prospective patient, they just like sticking people with needles.) My last two visits to the hospital were filled with Nurse Ratchets and their minions. My Thanksgiving stay at Gardens Memorial Hospital afforded me the opportunity to be punctured no less than six times over a three day stay. Two of these punctures were just to "Draw Blood" which apparently can not be done from the hose that has already been inserted in your arm/ wrist/ hand. This procedure must be done in the crook of your arm even if you have three other fire hose size tubes protruding from your body.
Right from the start of an IV there is usually a problem of finding a "GOOD" vein. In spite of having had to drink enough Gatorade to fill half of Lake Michigan in order to prep for my most recent surgery at Jupiter Medical Center the Pre-Op nurse still had trouble finding a place to drill into my body for the IV. Usually my "Best Veins" are in my left arm but since that was the arm the surgery was being performed on Countess Dracula had to find a spot in my right arm. She started by tying a rubber hose around the top of my arm and tightening it to the point of imminent gangrene. THEN she started slapping me ! She slapped my arm, she slapped my hand, she slapped my wrist . . . Thankfully she found a spot before I started slapping her. Unlike the nurse at Gardens hospital, the Jupiter nurse DID find a vein on the first try. Unfortunately the only vein she could find was on the back of my right hand which was my ONLY hand I had to use for any and all other bodily functions. It was a challenge to say the least.
So now you are placed in your hospital room, tied to a tube that extends from your arm to a pole on wheels. Every time you need or want to move around your room you have to drag the pole with you. But to up the adventure the pole holding the bags of IV fluids has a little box attached to it that the IV lines must pass through. This "pump" regulates the flow of the fluid. (It seems that even Gravity needs assistance.) The Pump has a charming little beeper that alerts the nurses when ever the IV is clogged or empty or too warm or too cold or just wanting to make noise just for the hell of it. This warning beeper likes to wait until you have just fallen asleep to start its screaming ! The sound is so loud that planes landing at the near by airport think they are in danger of crashing. BUT . . . Although the sound can be heard for a twenty mile radius the nurse down the hall can NOT hear it so they must be summoned by intercom. That is only done IF you can find the intercom button that has mysteriously disappeared somewhere in your bed or chair.
So now in order to get up you have to #1. Unplug the IV machine. #2. Wrap the three miles of tubing around the pole to keep from getting caught like a Dolphin in a fishing net. #3. Spin the IV pole around on its five swivel wheels to get it to roll next to you and lastly, #4. Manage to maneuver around furniture without tripping over everything. It is at this point of just about making it into the bathroom when the door to your room bursts open and the nurse asks you to get back in your chair so they can take your blood pressure. And they wonder why my blood pressure was so high !!!
As if this isn't enough torture Gardens Hospital had me hooked to a heart monitor that weighed three tons and hung from a pocket in my hospital gown. (If you have ever had the pleasure of wearing a hospital gown you know what a challenge it is to keep the damn things on without it being weighed down by a heavy box pulling it down in the front.) Coming from the monitor were at least six wires that attached to EKG sensors glued to my body so they could make sure my heart was still beating. I wasn't in the hospital for my heart but that made no difference. Hospital Policy said that EVERYONE on that particular floor HAD to wear a heart monitor.
I was delighted to be in Jupiter Hospital for my most recent surgery because they didn't require the heart torture machine. Unfortunately this hospital had devised an even better type of torture. In addition to the IV pole and pump Jupiter Hospital places a "secret" pad under you when you're in bed or sitting in the chair. It blasts you with an alarm as soon as you stand up ! For what ever reason anyone and EVERYONE staying on the surgical floor MUST have the "fall risk" alarm turned on to warn the nurses of your imminent escape.
As I have mentioned I am not a novice to hospitals and I always try to be as independent and self sufficient as possible to spare the poor nurses from being summoned to my room every time I sneeze. They have enough to do to take care of the SICK people on the floor. I am FINE and don't need them standing in my room while I walk to the bathroom and back. (I understand that immediately after surgery you are still loopy and weak but once they see that you can manage on your own they can lighten up a bit. But HOSPITAL POLICY says . . .
It also seems that when a nurse looks at my chart and sees that I am 75 years old I am automatically placed in the senile, little old lady category. It isn't until I meet them a couple of times that they realize I REALLY CAN take care of myself and don't need to be monitored every second. God Bless them that they DO usually figure this out very quickly and free me from the hospital constraints. To do my part I am SUPER careful when moving about so I don't end up tied to the bed with restraints.
I have no desire to make any more visits to hospitals for a very long time. I can only imagine what new means of torture they will devise over the next twenty years.
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