It’s high time to lighten things up around here. Just because I am still, yes still(!) in the hospital doesn’t mean there aren’t things to poke fun at. In fact, much of what goes on around here is worth poking fun at.

So far, nobody woke me to offer me a sleeping pill. Yes it has been done. However I have had the same person offer me a laxative literally (seriously I’m going to use literally as it literally is intended) right after helping me back from the bathroom with … well, you figure it out but Adrian Cronauer would have credited it to a cup of strong cappuccino.

Diets are an interesting phenomenon in hospitals particularly when one has abdominal surgery. You start out with nothing but sips of water. You progress through clear liquids to full liquids to soft and then regular food. All the while each step gets modified to meet your specific health needs like a cardiac or renal or diabetic diet. I have yet to figure out why. When you’re on clear liquids you barely have the strength to left spoon to mouth so that goes right back barely touched. By the time you can eat solid food you’re chowing down on the sandwiches and cookies your family is smuggling past the nurses station and you’re too full to bother with the hospital’s offerings. And their food always tastes bad. You know it’s bad but if you had to describe what is bad about it you find those words have yet to be invented. I’m on Day 17 of this hospitalization so I’ve had some time to think about this. I’ve decided it’s the taste equivalent of when you walk into an elevator and you know somebody was there wearing a cologne more suited to a Turkish whorehouse than anywhere else on earth. So I suspect.

You recall my rants regarding remote controls. Too many buttons, too little function! Back in the 70s (yes, I really am that old) nurse call bells were pretty much that. In fact, the first hospital I worked at kept actual bells to distribute to patients in the event of a power failure. Today’s call bell alert mechanisms control lights, television power channel and volume, bed position, sleeping alarms, and might actually summon assistance by way of a two-way radio communication with a disembodied voice from somewhere deep in the building. My particular remote control/Dick Tracy wrist radio gets a lot of abuse pulled across the room, dropped on the floor, and otherwise tortured. This is an absolute true story. All of them are but you are going to say “Oh come on now!” when you read this so just keep in mind, this is an absolute true story. Among other things, my call button controls the room light (button A), controls a reading lamp (button B), controls the TV (TV), and summons assistance (stick figure of some bald dude). I was ready to call it another unsuccessful day and pressed button B to turn the reading lamp off but instead the main room light came on. Checking that I was indeed pressing the right button I tried again and the main light went off. Then I pushed button A because why not and the TV came on. Pressing button A a second time yielded no results so I pressed the stick figure button to report my equipment malfunction but instead of lighting up indicating a call had been initiated, the TV went off and the reading lamp came on. At this point I was back to having the reading lamp on and everything else off. I figured I could fall asleep under those circumstances and left well enough alone. Eventually someone would be in to check my blood pressure and I would report the broken control then.

I could go on with other curiosities like footwear particularly among the anesthesia staff, status boards, and isolation procedures but I might need some lighter topics next week too.

By the way, if I follow you and you haven’t heard a peep from me and are concerned, some sites I can reach through the hospital guest WiFi, some I cannot, and some change day to day. I am better and just waiting for some labs to stabilizer before I can be set free on the world again. I’ll catch up with my required reading then.