My Hospital Stay

Ok, so I have "stayed" at the hospital a total of 4 times my entire life. 3 of those times were for the birth of my boys, and one time for having my appendix out at a young age. At 5, I basically remember eating lots of jello and receiving an-etch a sketch along with fluffy slippers.
This time, I received excellent care, however not a great experience.
I received a call at 8 a.m. the day of my surgery asking me to come earlier than my initial 11:30 a.m. check in time as my surgery time had changed from 1:30 p.m. to before noon. Ok, Gary and I rushed to take showers, load my bag and get on the road. We arrived at 10:00 a.m. and waited, and waited…..I was finally brought back to pre op at 11: 00 a.m. I tried to be very patient, but towards the end I was getting a irritated, especially when I kept watching a doctor walk back and forth in front of the 4 beds in pre op staging. I wondered why he kept going back and forth, and I was waiting for the anesthesiologist to give his talk to me. Well, the doctor walking back and forth was MY anesthesiologist, but he was looking for an 81 year old gentlemen, not a 45 year old lady! I guess they had moved the 81 year old gentlemen back in the surgery time to move me ahead and failed to tell the anesthesiologist. At least he finally found me. A very nice doctor. Your anesthesiologist needs to be a great doctor and your bestest friend.I finally went into surgery a bit after 1:30 p.m. The exact time I was originally scheduled.
Fast-forward about 5 hours and I am in the recovery room. There are NO rooms available. I am by now awake but nodding in and out and I hear talk of placing me in ICU until a room is available. I remember thinking my hubby is going to freak out if they tell him they are placing me in ICU. They went out to tell him and he told me later his first thought was they were not telling him the truth, that there was something wrong. Another hour passed and I asked them to let hubby come back and see me because I knew that by this time that man was probably stressing, wondering where I was. The wonderful nurses snuck him to me. By midnight (6 hours AFTER surgery) they moved me into a private room in a wing they opened up to handle the overflow of patients.( I guess ICU was off the table as an option ) I was impressed with the size, with the fact everything was new and I had a t.v.
The next morning I was up walking around, and relaxing in my private room, when one of the main honchos came in and lowered the boom on my hospital experience. I was being moved as the overflow now was contained and they were going to place patients back into the main wing. Darn. I walked with my iv pole to my new room or so I thought. I was in 1904 A for about 1 hour, when it was discovered that the t.v. connection to my bed was not working, plus I think they knew I did not want to be cramped into a shared room with the patient that was already there. She had already been through 3 roommates. I apparently was placed there as a transition. I was moved to 1902 B around 2 p.m. and musical beds had finished.
It was not a private room, it was small but I had a window to look out of. However, I did not find out until later that yes, the window was dark, it did not prevent people walking past from looking in. YIKES! My bed was facing the window and at times I would lay with my blankets off, and my legs spread open with the catheter tubing hanging out to get some air up my ugly hospital gown. I just wonder if anyone saw…how embarrassing. The window was nice during the "big" storm on Friday. I didn’t lay with the blankets off any longer though.
So, as you can see, it was not a resort, the food was ok, the accommodations rather cramp, the help was excellent but I would not recommend to anyone else. Save your frequent flyer miles for a better trip.