I've never been a patient admitted to the hospital (since I was a newborn), but I have spent way too much time as a visitor over the past few months.

are hospital hallways ever actually dark??

Yes. In the NICU rooms they are dark all the time to simulate a womb, unless a baby is getting light therapy for jaundice. The outer hallway, by the sink etc, is dimmed too, but still pretty bright.

I need to defend hospital staff

Me too.

Every night I've had to stay with Grace (YES! She is is MRSA colonized which means contact isolation and no room sharing! Way to go extremely infectious, difficult to treat disease!) after a surgery has been difficult and people are in and out for patient care, but they try to remain quiet so Grace can sleep or so that I can sleep. Keep in mind, we are now on in the middle of year 4 of surgeries that happen every 10 weeks.

I will also silence alarms myself. When she's in a monitored bed, I just turn them off myself. If it shows up at the nurse's station and someone checks, that's fine. I will also turn off her IV infusions if they beep for more than a half hour or I will call the nurse and request that they either refill the bag or cap the IV.

The hardest overnights, weirdly, are the sleep studies.

are hospital hallways ever actually dark??

Yes. In the NICU rooms they are dark all the time to simulate a womb, unless a baby is getting light therapy for jaundice. The outer hallway, by the sink etc, is dimmed too, but still pretty bright.

I need to defend hospital staff

Me too.

Every night I've had to stay with Grace (YES! She is is MRSA colonized which means contact isolation and no room sharing! Way to go extremely infectious, difficult to treat disease!) after a surgery has been difficult and people are in and out for patient care, but they try to remain quiet so Grace can sleep or so that I can sleep. Keep in mind, we are now on in the middle of year 4 of surgeries that happen every 10 weeks.

I will also silence alarms myself. When she's in a monitored bed, I just turn them off myself. If it shows up at the nurse's station and someone checks, that's fine. I will also turn off her IV infusions if they beep for more than a half hour or I will call the nurse and request that they either refill the bag or cap the IV.

The hardest overnights, weirdly, are the sleep studies.

Ugh. So true, Jesse.

Ugh. So true, Jesse.

My mom's been chronically ill since I was a kid, so I've spent way too much time in hospitals, too (aside from my own in-patient stays). Hospitals are noisy, and are hardly the best place to get a peaceful night's sleep, but my point was that the staff isn't being noisy or careless purposely. Most of the disruption comes from other patients, and machinery, and the simple fact of so many people trying to work while others are sleeping.

For me, with all three kids, and the gall bladder surgery, nurses were the saving grace of each stay, and they've done more for my mom than I can say.

I was really impressed with our local ICU, when my grandmother was there. The rooms were totally self-contained, so it was very quiet in there with the door shut, and they had a sign on the door to let staff know she wasn't having any intervention. It was a butterfly -- I assume that's what it meant. My other favorite one they have is like a shooting star, for falling risk.

§ ita § (and any other interested parties), is this what you had in mind, shared Evernote-wise?

[link]

I've never had more trouble sleeping in hospitals than I did in motels or any bed-that-is-not-my-bed, really.

I was up before dawn this morning for no reason whatsoever. I am just that person, now, I guess.

I've only been in a hospital to give birth in the last 40 years, and I was very frustrated with my time after the babies were born for a couple of reasons. 1) NO WIFI. 2) A lot of the hospital routines are set up for the convenience of the staff, not the patient. Someone would come in and check X, then half an hour later someone else would come in and check on Y, then half an hour later there would be food. (Terrible food). And I was tired, had just been up all night not to mention giving birth and all, but was basically in excellent health (unmedicated birth, straightforward delivery.) I knew logically that they needed to check on me for possible complications, but the lack of coordination of everything was annoying. Like, I was rooming in, but they came and took Dillo away to check something on him, late at night when I was alone, and they didn't bring him back for hours, and not for any medical reason they ever mentioned to me; I sort of think they thought they were being helpful by taking the baby so I could sleep, but I wanted the baby with me and couldn't sleep while he was gone for worrying about him. He was also in fine health, so why couldn't they coordinate checks on the baby with checks on the mother, and do them in-room? Because it was easier for them. Which makes sense in its way, but was very annoying for the 24 hours I had to deal with it. I might feel differently if I'd been hospitalized for actual illness.

Negative t, that's exactly what I was thinking of! I've joined the notebook, and I'll copy my recipes over in a second (not as many as yours, but I will be more diligent about filing instead of bookmarking, etc).