No Mark, the Nurses are not Waitresses

On a list of my favorite things, visiting someone in the hospital is near the bottom. Lets face it, you aren't going there to have a glass of wine and spend quality time with a good friend. You visit someone in the hospital just to show that you care enough to be around them when they are at their worst. To me a hospital is a germ filled hell hole.

On Thursday, the doctor put Mark back in the hospital. It turns out that he was released too soon the last time, and has only got worse over the last week. It also turns out that he doesn't have pneumonia, and at this point after x-rays, cat scans, and heart tests, the doctors have no idea why he can't breathe. I am sure it is a horrible experience for Mark, but what about me? Sure, Mark being in the hospital means I can sleep through an entire night without being woke up by his hacking cough, that's a plus. The problem is that he calls on the phone at least ten times a day. The first call comes at nine in the morning, with the question of when am I coming to see him. Then in a flurry of calls during the next two hours, I get a list, a long list, of things that I need to bring him. Magazines, newspapers, socks, underwear, food, DVD's, are all on the request list. After assembling everything, I then have to schlep all this crap up to Mark's hospital room.

A patients room is not built for comfort, for either the patient or the visitor. In the middle of the room is the patient, on display like the turkey on a Thanksgiving table. Around him are the machines and tubes pumping him full of mysterious fluids. In one corner of the room is a chair, the visitors chair. A cheap, uncomfortable chair, manufactured specifically for use in a hospital, probably by the same company that makes electric chairs for the prison system. This is the chair that I will have to sit in for a couple of hours and make small talk with a man who is constantly hacking up phlegm balls and spitting them into a bucket. I actually look forward to Mark’s trips to the bathroom. It’s a break in the routine, even if it requires moving Mark and all his tubes, machines, and IV’s en masse into the bathroom and then back. There is a television in the room, yet it offers no relief from the tedium of a hospital visit, because Mark has the remote, and besides, the tiny speaker is on the bed next to Mark. I know it sounds like I’m a real prick, but I put on a good face for Mark. He has no idea how much I hate the visit.

I wonder if hospitals make visiting a patient difficult on purpose? I mean if they wanted to encourage it, wouldn’t they put in a recliner chair, a big screen television, and surround sound? Oh, yeah, and serve liquor.