After spending a few days and nights in the hospital (don’t worry, I’m fine) I’ve realized how weird and bizarre they can be sometimes. This article is basically my attempt at finding some humor in a not-so-great situation. General content warning: hospitals are also gross, so there are some mentions of blood and needles but it’s nothing too graphic or descriptive.
My mom’s a nurse and every morning she comes home with some crazy story about her night at work. Me and my family always listened in disbelief, but after spending a few days here myself, I can conclude that hospitals are the weirdest place in the world. Nurses are so unbothered by all the chaos happening around them– it should be considered a superpower. A nurse came into my room to give me antibiotics and said to me “a guy has been violently throwing up in the hallway for like 20 minutes now can you hear it in here?” and then proceeded to do her thing without even being phased by the guy in the hallway who was clearly having a pretty rough time. This happened so often, it’s crazy how easily they’re able to tune into whatever they’re doing amidst chaos. They sometimes get a little too tuned in, though, and kind of go on autopilot. I had a nurse come in to do blood work, but she forgot to tell me what she was doing before she started so I, assuming she was just taking vitals, had a very rude awakening. She immediately apologized once she realized, I just found it funny how focused she was on completing her assigned tasks.
Hospital food gets a bad rep. First of all, they cut up all your food for you, which is the most adorable thing in the world. The food itself is not that bad and they give you a lot of it. Through my trip I rediscovered my love for peaches, which my mom is convinced I will never eat again after this week. It’s also just nice having someone bring you a tray of food; the tray itself and the cute juice cups also remind me of high school cafeterias which might be a negative experience for some people but personally, I found it fun.
Something about being nervous makes me the funniest person in the room. I’m no comedian, but if I had to get an IV put in I could probably do an entire stand-up set, no questions asked. My first day was mostly spent in the ER and I was so fixated on the idea of antibiotics and how ridiculous it is that they haven’t figured out a way to make those pills smaller yet. Like, it’s 2021, get it together,science. Another great quote that my mom will never let me live down is “There better not be any cats [in the CAT scan] for I am very allergic.” No one laughed at that one, though. They can’t all be winners.
Obviously, everyone’s experience is different. I’m super lucky to be in good health and to have had amazing nurses but I acknowledge the fact that hospitals or the idea of staying at a hospital is very anxiety inducing for most people. Trust me, my first day here my heart rate was so high due to my anxiety that they were worried something else was going on. I left out lots of moments of worry, stress and pain as a way to bring some light to and to laugh about a negative experience. I don’t want to appear ignorant to the fact that, especially with Covid, hospitals are extremely scary. So say thank you to your loved ones currently working in healthcare, they could definitely use some love right now.