Hospitalizations

How many members here enjoy being in the hospital? Is there any particular instance that you remember that may have caused you to like or not like it?

I kind of like being in the hospital. There's just something about it that makes me feel loved and cared for.

I remember two instances; one in the pediatric hospital, and one in the adult hospital:

I had a routine port replacement on December 7th, 2010. I was 18 (about to turn 19) and at CHOA. I can remember the nurse coming into the recovery room that I was in, and her telling my mom “I was about to leave when they asked if I could take care of one more patient. When I asked how old, they said ‘she's 18.’ I said ‘can't you find someone else’ and they said ‘oh, no, this one’s real sweet.” I guess most 18-year olds were not nearly as well-behaved as I was.

The time that I was in the adult hospital, I had a port infection. It was January of 2015 and I had just turned 23. I can remember the nurses being super nice; even waiting until a basketball game was over to come into my room (per my mom’s request). I was at the very end of the hall, so I had requested for my door to stay open, which they also honored.

If I never had to enter a hospital again for the rest of my life, I would consider it a positive achievement. Not that I have personally had any bad or unpleasant experiences in a hospital (aside from watching my wife die in a Spanish hospital).

But the thing is, people only go to hospitals out of dire need, because there is something wrong with them. I prefer to be healthy and well, thank you very much, and certainly not dependent on others, or having to adhere to their timetables of waking up and eating (the junky food they serve) or being treated like someone with no education or intelligence (often standard attitude by hospital staff once you get to be older). Nor would I care one whit for the utter lack of privacy in a hospital.

Medfet is fun and all, but a real hospital and real medical affairs are something completely different. I'll avoid them if at all possible.

To just add to what agracier mentioned, in the hospital, you are away from all of your freedoms. You're instead stuck, mainly confined to a bed all day, each day.

Seems more synonymous to a prison than to a home, except you're taken better care of, and most likely you're there for some type of ailment or negative health issue.

There may be some elements of a hospital stay that might be appealing. Like being given a nice bath from a nurse or something.

I completely agree with Agracier , I was in the hospital last week(what I refer to as being an inmate) for 3 days and 2 nights . I was absolutely miserable and on the 3rd day was not only getting very cranky but also a bit depressed .

Nothing about the treatment I recieved was sub par and each and every employeee I came in contact with was professional and very nice to me - there was also a couple of males that were very pleasing to the eye 😉 . I even had a aide that was a mom of a former student I had and we had a lovely long chat and she returned to say goodbye and wish me luck at the end of her shift .

I couldnt sleep the first night , not a darn wink because I am such a creature of habit and it wasnt my bed or my pillows . I couldnt put on my own pj's because I was hooked up to a heart monitor and had to have it in the pocket of the hospital gown , which was 5 sizes too big and I kept getting all tangled up in it . The second night was a bit better I finally did fall asleep out of pure exhaustion and even tho the nurse tried not to wake me she still had to do vitals every 4 hrs and I had blood drawn every six hrs .

For me there is nothing like recuperating in my own home . If I had not been released the day I was ( and it took lots of promises to make it happen ) I am pretty sure I would have signed myself out AMA.

I was once hospitalized against my will when I was in the army. I was working nights, usually I would wake up and go and pick everyone up, this one evening I didn't, they came to my room, and woke me up, I was soaked in my bed, totally drenched, I had the quickest shower and shave in history, got into my uniform, and grabbed my weapon and kit and walked to the vehicle with the guys, by the time I got to the HQ where I worked I was drenched in my own sweat. I couldn't cool down. I walked into work sat at my post, my commander came in and saw he commented on how gaunt I looked and told me to go to the sick bay. I went, the Army Dr. put a thermometer in my mouth, and stated I was going nowhere it was dangerously high, I tried to persuade him otherwise, next thing an army ambulance arrived, my weapon was taken away and I was on my way to an army field hospital, once I got there a female nurse asked me to get into some pj's, I refused, and stated I wasn't that ill and would just sit and watch tv, as it was my time for being awake, and that I was on permanent nights, by morning I was tired and went and sat on the bed but didn't get in it. I had a fever, and couldn't stay cool, a Dr came by and took a cursory look at me but didn't examine me. I'd acquired a flu that most troops were catching, a desert flu, so they knew it was all about rehydration, a couple of days sleep so they left me alone. Within a couple of days. I felt better, I implored the Dr on the ward to let me go, he did, and stated, I didn't have to remain there, and stated "its not a prison" I went back to work, they were very good, as always I am a terrible patient, and hate the idea of being attended to, but they seemed to meet me half way.

I have only been hospitalized once. It was for my tonsils in the 1960s. It wasn't a very pleasant experience. I had to stay overnight but back then parents were not allowed to stay. When they had to leave the entire tonsils ward freaked out. Also, the nurses seemed to take our temperatures (rectally, of course) about every 15 minutes. I was very happy to go home.

I've been in the hospital three times, overnight for cardiac catheterizations. All three times (two different hospitals) the incompetence was stunning. I'm very glad I was fully alert and able to fend for myself.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've been an inmate . I can't say I particularly enjoy any of it . Most procedures are invasive or painful , the food is dreadful and I hate the confinement. I spent 4 days in hospital again last week with Urosepsis. Due to the Cystic Fibrosis cross contamination rules I'm placed in my own room. Due to the positioning of the room I was in , I had no connection on my iPad wifi. The connection on the hospital wifi was non exsistent too and also the wifi connection on my mobile phone was pretty poor . So I couldn't read , watch movies or even have a proper conversation with my family or friends . The care I received was amazing as always and I was regularly checked upon by the nursing staff. They'd often pop in for 10 minutes for a little sit down and a chat .

I too find it depressing after a few days virtually alone . I'm a people person and love to talk so that's always hard. Visiting hours are from 1830 hours until 2000 hours every evening . Friends and family are asked to leave after those times . I do take my own pillows and blanket as the rooms are often cold and NHS pillows are limited to one per person. I'm lucky in that because I'm such a regular patient I always have a bag packed . This bag contains snacks, pyjamas and a nightie. So if they insert a Foley catheter I can still wear my own nightie rather than one of the gorgeous , sexy , blue and white gowns 😉 which are always huge on me .

I barely sleep when I'm in there as it's usually too cold or the monitors keep going off . I was on hourly observations the first two nights due to really high temperatures. So I got a full set of observations every hour . Blood pressure , temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturation levels. Blood sugars were also done every 4 hours.

On Thursday when I heard the words that Hospital At Home had capacity to take me I did a little happy dance . Instead of being an inmate until Wednesday the 3rd of May I went home with my IV line in ( my port is misbehaving at the minute) . Two Nurses come every day at 0730 , 1330 and 1930. They do a full set of observations like they would in hospital and administer my IV antibiotics . Today they've also took blood . This will go back to the lab and the results will decide my fate. Whether they change antibiotics , stop them Tuesday evening or carry on for a few more days .

I'm so glad that they offer this service . I love to be at home where I can eat properly , rest , sleep better and most importantly be with my girls and the dog .

Although I love medfet I like the real stuff to be happy memories to play out at a later time . Some things that have happened to me can happily stay in the hospital and I hope they never happen again.

Nik

Hope you recover and feel better soon, @nik

My only ever stays in a hospital were in my teens. There are parts I look back on enjoyably and part I do not. Nothing very painful. No surgery or anything. The one visit they told me and my parents to bring "loose fitting gym clothes" for me to wear while there. The other visit they had me alternately in hospital pajamas or a gown. The worst part of each experience was needles for blood tests.

I have never been hospitalized and hope never too . I have worked in hospitals for over 27 years and can quite agree with the sentiments expressed by Nik and Bridgette

I too find it depressing after a few days virtually alone .

I barely sleep when I'm in there as it's usually too cold or the monitors keep going off . I was on hourly observations the first two nights due to really high temperatures. So I got a full set of observations every hour . Blood pressure , temperature, heart rate and oxygen saturation levels. Blood sugars were also done every 4 hours.

I was in the hospital last week(what I refer to as being an inmate) for 3 days and 2 nights . I was absolutely miserable and on the 3rd day was not only getting very cranky but also a bit depressed .

I couldnt sleep the first night , not a darn wink because I am such a creature of habit and it wasnt my bed or my pillows . I couldnt put on my own pj's because I was hooked up to a heart monitor and had to have it in the pocket of the hospital gown , which was 5 sizes too big and I kept getting all tangled up in it . The second night was a bit better I finally did fall asleep out of pure exhaustion and even tho the nurse tried not to wake me she still had to do vitals every 4 hrs and I had blood drawn every six hrs .

Yes unfortunately sleep disturbance is an unfortunate aspect of hospitalization as vital obs need to be perform , when I worked in ITU (ICU) there was always the sounds of the alarms as well as the ventilators ( respirators), so it was never really quiet or restful for the patients unless they were sedated . sleep deprivation really makes you irritable, depressed and a bit psychotic at times , its a well documented phenomenon in ITU's so called ICU psychosis ( although other factors do contribute , like dehydration, hypoxia (low blood oxygen), heart failure (inadequate cardiac output), infection and drugs )

As with most the best place to recuperate is home , like the old adage goes "There's no place like home". I know when I travel I do find it difficult to fall asleep in strange surround the first night , so I'm sure I will be psychotic by the end of the second day from sleep deprivation.

I has in the hospital for the first time since being brought into this world at the age of 21 or 22. I think that is something to brag about. I was put into the hospital for chronic pneumonia. It was terrible for me. I had it so bad I was sucking my shin in around my ribs when I would try to inhale. All I could to is try to keep from coughing my insides out, it hurt so much. Don't get me wrong the staff was great and caring. The staff came in atleast every hour for vitals and such. I couldn't sleep, get comfortable, or even relax. The medicine they where giving me through an iv made me vomit several times. The third day I was feeling better. I'm sure I was very grouchy, I told the doctor that if he was not going to release me I going to walk out. He did indeed take me seriously and released me under certain conditions. I agreed with him and was released a couple of hours later. I strongly believe that a person can rebound back easier being home versus the hospital. I believe I needed to be in the hospital at first. Hospitals are not for me!

Yes unfortunately sleep disturbance is an unfortunate aspect of hospitalization as vital obs need to be perform

My overnight hospitalizations were in a cardiac step down unit (observation) after cardiac catheterization with sent placement. I kicked the nursing techs out overnight - no vitals, I refused. I told them to come back in the morning. That was the same hospital that took over 2 hours to check on me after I removed the cardiac monitor.

Some of you are some very nauty stubborn patients.

Some of you are some very nauty stubborn patients.

Yes I am.I also brought my own pills from home and insisted on self administration.

Some of you are some very nauty stubborn patients.

I had a six week spell in hospital once - my only time in a hospital overnight - and all care was wonderful and expert, all you could hope for. But one thing I was very stubborn about was the food served. It was awful crap, no two ways about it. Overcooked wretched vegetables and nothing but white bread. Never a salad or fruit, never rice or couscous, just watery potatoes or mashed stuff, worse than in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you couldn't even mold it into Devil's Tower ... ha ha.

A dietician came to see me and couldn't understand for the life of her why I wanted raw salads instead of mushy broccoli or dark bread instead of the Euro version of Wonder Bread. She didn't understand (or approve really) of my family bringing me Japanese meals either. Raw fish? I had to be kidding surely ... ha ha.

So yes, when it came to hospital food, I was stubborn as can be and let it be known what I thought of their fare.

For dinner one evening while my daughter was there, I sent her out for wonderful Asian noodle soup (not Pho). Unfortunately, the doctor had ordered a diabetic - cardiac diet, IOW cardboard. That's when I found out that I can refuse dietary care and just get the regular menu regardless of 'doctor's orders.' It wasn't good food, but at least it was edible.

Are you kidding?

NOBODY likes being in a hospital.

Being anywhere has to be horrible for a hospital to be better.

I'm with Susie on this one. The one time I've been an inpatient since I was a baby was aged 27, for one night, and I have no fond memories or desires to be back there.

It was impossible to sleep through the noise made by patient next to me, and once he was moved to a side room at 4am then the nurses decided to start a conversation. The food was awful, chicken that tasted like rubber and bread that was more like cardboard than bread. The local McDonalds 10 minutes away would have been more nutritious.

The only positive of the whole visit was being discharged.

Oh god, enjoy the hospital? You've got to be crazy! I've been admitted for several things. I was admitted for five days for work up of a fever of known origin in 1972. It was bone marrow biopsies, gastric intubation looking for tuberculosis and every four hour rectal temperatures. It was painful, degrading and I hated it. I was admitted for three weeks after my hip fracture in 1981. Once again it was painful and degrading. I was in a spica cast in a circle electric bed. I have been admitted for other things since. I've hated every single admission. You play it their way. It's not something I would wish on my worst enemy. Jabbotok if you like injections you'll love bone marrow biopsies. They're excruciatingly painful and you have to expose you bare buttocks to the doctor, several lab techs and assorted nurses. It's utterly pathetic.

I was hospitalized last year for knee replacement surgery. The surgery went fine; nurses and aides were wonderful and I had a wonderful view out my window. On the other hand, I got very little sleep, the automatic BP machine drove me nuts, they forgot to give me my pain meds twice and getting out was a bigger pain in the behind than being admitted. All in all, I can wait to have the other knee done. If it wasn't for my visitors, I would have gone nuts.

As much as surgery and procedures interest me and get my motor running, I'm not a big fan of being in the hospital. I had open heart surgery to repair my mitral valve, and I was in the hospital for a week. It wasn't bad, but by the fourth day, I was feeling better and I was ready to go home. Every time I turned around I was getting my blood pressure taken, or blood drawn. But the hospital I was at was top notch. I couldn't have asked for better care. And all of the nurses were fantastic.

98% of the time if you are hospitalized for any period of time It usually coincides with being badly sick/in great amounts of pain which makes it rather difficult to enjoy any part of it. I haven't been admitted to the hospital since I was 4 when I had eye surgery and haven't been to the ER since I was 7 when I had severe constipation that gave me symptoms similar to an appendicitis so my parents decided to be safe and take me to the ER. Since then I've been lucky enough to avoid any major health issues greater than a broken wrist

Most of my experiences in hospitals have been visiting others, which for various reasons have their own associations to sad and other bad memories. I have been fortunate to only have had one overnight stay as a patient, as well as just a handful of trips to the emergency room, none of which I desire to repeat. I have nothing bad to say about the care I received or the medical professionals who cared for me, but in all cases I was either really sick and/or in pain and generally afraid of what was happening or had happened to some part of my body.

Without a doubt the worst of these experiences was the overnight stay. I was admitted from the ER to continue IV treatment for dehydration. I had been pretty out of it while I was in the ER, but also was able to get some periods of sleep. By the time I was moved up to a room, I actually was beginning to feel quite a bit better, but the night I spent in that room was really just unpleasant.

Although I was exhausted, I basically got no sleep. First, the sound of the IV machine drove me crazy because it actually prevented me from being able to fall asleep. I thought that once the bag was empty the machine noises would stop, but instead the alarm went off and when the nurse finally came she just started a new bag thus continuing my inability to fall asleep. In addition, there was an obviously disoriented patient in the room across the hall from mine, and every time a nurse entered his room for any reason he started yelling, which just compounded my frustration at being unable to fall asleep. However, even had I been able to fall asleep, I still would have gotten little sleep because I had to get up to go to the bathroom every 20-30 minutes because of all the fluids I had been given all day and was continuing to receive all night.

When morning finally came, I was completely exhausted and just wanted to go home so I could actually get some sleep. Fortunately, I was able to be discharged by early afternoon. I went to bed as soon as I got home and basically slept all day, and by the following day I was feeling so much better. I can't imagine how much worse I would have felt if I had to spend another sleepless night in that hospital room! I certainly appreciated the needed care I received while in the hospital, but I would not have stayed a minute longer than necessary for the sake of my sanity.

I just had total left knee replacement. I was in the hospital for 3 nights. Checking in for pre surgery I was put in a standard hospital pre surgical cubical with a bed. The nurse, a 30's something women came in with a package of sterile swabs. I had to take off all my clothes. I stood there naked as she swabbed my back, I swabbed the rest of me. Then she put me in a back opening gown and I got into bed. The anesthesiologist came in and they gave me a spinal block. This numbed me from the waist down. I felt like I was paralyzed. Strange feeling.

Once in the operating room, I was put on the table and as they adjusted me, strapped my arms etc the anesthesiologist said, This will put you to sleep. Next thing I knew, I was in recovery, My hospital stay was quite pleasant. The food was actually very good and the bed was very comfortable. Drugs were good too.

On the Second day an attractive young nurse came in to help me wash up with the sterile swabs and put on my clothes. Not being able to move my knee she had to help me with my underwear etc. No modesty in a hospital.

Checking in for pre surgery I was put in a standard hospital pre surgical cubical with a bed. The nurse, a 30's something women came in with a package of sterile swabs. I had to take off all my clothes. I stood there naked as she swabbed my back, I swabbed the rest of me. Then she put me in a back opening gown and I got into bed.

Not the surgery part, but being scrubbed that way is one of my favorite fantasies. I enact that myself in the shower with a long handled brush, scrubbing every inch with the water off.

I have never been admitted to a hospital before like held over night. It was on only on the day when I was born but, not for any other reasons. I have been to the hospital for an eeg test, x-rays, and a MRI. I have been for lab work servel times. I have been taken to the hospital for a car accident and got released 5 hours later.

I was admitted for tonsillectomy as a baby, vivid experience, particularly OR and anesthesia, a bit traumatic though being held down for induction, alone in room at night, forced treatment. Most vivid medical memories and probably root of my fetish

I have never been hospitalized (knock on wood) but I have been in the ER once, for what turned out to be a kidney stone. I was released with pain killers several hours after arrival and passed the stone the next day at home.

I have had 16 inpatient surgeries for spina bifida and its related issues. All have required an uncomfortable recovery, so I've really never been able to partake in my fetish during those times, which is observing the patient who is masked for protection of the immune system. So, most of my enjoyment of that has been through hospital documentaries dealing with transplant (and once in real life meeting a girl who was masked up in public because she was awaiting a lung transplant.