In my recent hospital stay I had no choice: the place is cold. I was permanently cold and therefore miserable.
At home there are choices. I can wear more than a hospital gown. I can use an electric blanket. I can warm one room, the room I am in.
Choices. So I choose to be warm.
This choice comes with a problem:
I am warm. I am no longer miserable... I switch to irritation.
I switch all the way to anger.
Anger at the awful hospital where I was permanently cold.
I was cold in bed. Extra blankets gave me a small self-warmed cocoon. Outside my cocoon of blankets was a sub-zero room.
Nurses offered to walk me to the shower. I refused. No way would I walk through that cold room to the shower.
Food appeared. I stayed in my cocoon and looked out at the tray of food. Too cold to reach out to try to eat.
Oh, I did nibble on one meal. Something made from farmers boot leather, as far as I could tell.
I don't actually know how long I was in hospital. I barely ate, I was too cold. I lay in bed clenching by bowels, no way I would cross the floor to the toilet.
There is no way to warm the room. The whole hospital is set to freeze. They may as well have left the doors and windows open.
In case I manage to get enough blankets -- there is an air con vent in the ceiling. Placed where it can blow cold air directly onto my bed.
It's suggested that I would be even less happy if a surgeon was so warm that a scalpel slipped from his sweaty fingers.
Well. one, I thought a surgeon would wear non-slip gloves.
And two: What if the surgeon -- as I did -- started to shiver. Violent and unstoppable whole-body shivering. I could not tap a keyboard. I doubt that a shivering surgeon would be safe with a scalpel.
I've worked in offices with a similar approach to air con.
Add a degree to the temperature and it costs a heap in energy bills. So, let the underlings -- and patients -- shiver.
The signs of too-cold air con are, that workers have their portable electric heaters under the desk.
When staff are more practical -- such as an engineering office -- you will see sheets of cardboard suck across the air con vents to stop the cold wind.
I had no portable heater. No cardboard, no duct tape. Next time I'll be better prepared.
So I spent several miserable days in hospital. Now I am home. Happy. Able to get warm. Unable to sleep nights, as anger bubbles up.
Oh. One of the first things I did when I arrived home was to send an email to the surgeon: If (when) he again has to operate on me. Do not do it in that same hospital.
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On a slightly different topic:
To get out of that hospital I had to sign something, admitting that I left "against medical advice".
I was happy to sign, just to get out.
As far as I remember -- I received no medical advice.
The surgeon did pass by. I remember that. I don't know what he said. I spent my time between asleep and unconscious.
His off-sider visited, once. I remember that visit because I asked her, what is your role. I think she said, RMO. Eh? Resident medical officer, she "explained". I was no wiser.
"Resident" as I understand it, is one of the stages of incompetence that a doctor passes through on the way to becoming a real doctor.
So what is her actual role. I thought a resident doctor is part of a hospital. This one seems to come with the surgeon. So who is she and why did she visit?
When I escaped I asked, when will... a doctor.. come by?
About now, I'm told. Where are they? No idea, I'm told.
Surgeons and "RMOs" operate their own schedules. Without, it appears, telling anyone else. Neither nurses nor those lowly creatures, the patients.
Yes, I have a lot of anger.
Now it's documented. Out of my system.
I hope I can now sleep at night.
Dr Nick Lethbridge / Consulting Dexitroboper
... Agamedes Consulting / Problems ? Solved
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Question authority. Don't expect to like the answer." ... per Ginger Meggs
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Dying for you to read my blog, at
https://notdotdeaddotyet.blogspot.com/ :-)
