BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???

Subject: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Jun 03 - 11:41 PM

I was talking with Rick Fielding tonight who has had to unfortunately spend more than his share of time in hospitals this past year and we got to laughing about a recent fellow he had as a roommate. As most of you also know I have had numerous hospital stays since '97 and it made me think that this might be a funny topic. Luckily some of you have not had the experience, but perhaps you've visited someone who was not having a great time............

I also know that some of you have had the experience for yourself and I know there's a tale or two to be told. Knowing many of you I would guess that you are like me and really try to accomodate the other person in the room but it seems as though I am generally the one on the accomodating end of things. It also seems that the best roommates I have had I never got to enjoy as they came when I was leaving or left just as I arrived!!! Almost every longer term roomie has been a pain in the ass!!!!

I hate hospital rooms that have only one TV. At OSU they have small TV's attached to each bed but around here that's a rarity. Most double rooms have one TV in the middle and adjustable speakers for each bed. Mt. Carmel is like that and on one stay of a week or so, I had the same roommate for almost the entire duration. This guy was was about 60 and watched all the game shows and soaps during the day. This was a plus and a minus. On the minus side, I hate that shit!!!! Also, even when I'm reading with my speakers off, his speakers were loud enough to hear. I tried listening to music but if you're like me, you get into the music and can't read so you listen while watching the gawdamn TV screen!!! At that point I would find myself making up filthy dialogue and forgot the music. The only solution was to take a walk, but how many times can you lap the floor dragging an IV before you're tired of the whole thing??? Finally I ended up sitting in the visitor's waiting room a lot.

So what's the plus??? You get a shitload of attention from nurses and aides and everybody else because they watch all the soaps!!! So if they can make a run to 207 where they know "Guiding Light" is on, they're there in a flash! I'm not kidding here!!!

The other problem with this guy was that a group of his family and/or friends showed up every damn night for 3 or 4 hours and many hospitals are lenient about the number of visitors. Okay....I can live with that....Karen and the boys would come for awhile too. But his group would show up at about 5 with random comings and goings til well after 9 when the nurses had to throw them out. And ya' know, I even could have taken that, except the main thing they did while there was..........yeah, you got it.......watch TV!!!! There were several independent and movie stations, but they were all into the network crappola of course. The only thing they used the cable channels for was to watch game shows while the news was on!!!!! One night while sitting in the visitors waiting room talking with a family of a man who was in very bad shape and feeling good about possibly making them feel better, one of my roommate's visitors walks in and tells me I missed a great "Wheel of Fortune."

Now I have a couple of better stories, one is just really gross, that I'll add later.....but what have you got? I know there are bound to be some!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Sorcha
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 12:25 AM

Oooo, sorry, but every time I have been in a hopsital room I've been totally out of it,so sorry. Mom's last stay was in the Hospice room so we were alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Art Thieme
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 01:00 AM

When I was 15 years old I blew out my knee playing football and that made for several surgeries. My first roomy was the worst. He was a guy who had built a bomb that he was taking to Chicago's Montrose Harbor on Lake Michigan to kill fish when the damn thing went off on his lap in his car. Needless to say, he was a mess. An arm was gone and a leg and genitalia was pretty much shreaded.

There is more to this and it was sort of hilarious, but even I know, sometimes, when to quit.

It's enough to say that he was a sicko sadist but I got my revenge and eventually the hospital saw the errors they had made putting us in the same room and he was moved. I was glad to have his 24 hour a day police guard taken off duty outside my door.


Art Thieme

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Allan C.
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 02:52 AM

It isn't really my story to tell; but I'll do it anyway. My brother once shared a hospital room with a farmer. The two of them were having a bit of plastic surgery done. The farmer's was rather extensive. Now, I'm not making fun of the farmer - far from it. In fact, this is pretty much the way he, himself, told the tale of how he became injured:

It seems he had been having a lot of problems with a hawk that kept swooping down and killing (if not simply scaring the hell out of) his chickens. Because of this, it became his habit to keep his shotgun close at hand in case he might get a clear shot at the culprit.

One morning the farmer was slopping the hogs when curiosity got the best of one of the porcine group. The next thing the farmer knew, the hog was nudging the trigger of the shotgun with his snout and thus...the pig shot the farmer!

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Hillheader
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 05:14 AM

Apparently in the 50's and 60's it was the done thing in hospitals to be allowed a bottle of Guinness a day. Helped the blood. The guy across from me (about 30 years ago this was) asked for the practice to be revived and the Ward sister agreed that his visitors could bring him in a bottle of Guinness a day. So they did, but not one of the ordinary (half pint or so) bottles - these babies were one and a half litres. It took Sister a week to work out how the guy was getting drunk.

Davebhoy

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Peter T.
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 11:04 AM

I had a minor operation that required me to be in hospital for about 3 days, and the guy I shared a room with was dying of lung cancer, and he was a great character -- he had been a Jewish tailor on Spadina Avenue (Toronto) in the Jewish heyday, and he regaled me with stories about all the vaudeville guys who came into town, and he was vicious about the influx of Chinese who had destroyed the area (as far as he was concerned) -- "The Day Shopsy's closes (Shopsy's was a big deli) is the day the Red Sea closes behind Moses, no more fucking Jews in Egypt!" And so on.

His other task was to hide cigarettes from everyone, in spite of the fact that his family came in every day to sweep out every hideyhole they could find. They looked everywhere, but he always seemed to hide a few, and where he got the supply, I do not know. In the toilets, bedpans, pillow slips, you name it. The first day he said to me, "Can you hide some for me?" and I said no. We discussed the ethics of this, and whether I was a putz, and he was dying anyway, so what did it matter, and we had a good time over it. Then he shrugged and took it in good part. It was a good thing!! The family -- five of them -- rolled in about an hour later, and they started their search, and stopped around my bed, looking suspiciously at me. "Can we search you?" one old lady said sweetly but determined. "No," I said, "I am offlimits. This is a cigarette-free zone. No cigarettes here." And from then on they left me in peace. I had a great time: the family was planning a huge wedding up north, so I got to hear everything about the Jewish community in Toronto, who was rich, who was poor, who was screwing whom, you name it, which was truly eye-opening!!!!When I left, it was actually quite sad, I had grown fond of the guy, who died a few months later.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: JenEllen
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 12:45 PM

Soap Operas? Try Telemundo Soap Operas!! Los días del amor y del corazón y de las historias del amor en español que conducen a pacientes en hospitales a los pensamientos del suicidio

I was in not too long ago, and the roommate was a tiny little Mexican grandmother who was surrounded by a herd of family, all day, all night, and all the women insisted on watching soaps. They brought GREAT food, and visiting with them was wonderful, but the grandmother? Sheesh. It seemed the only thing keeping her going was the shrine with a dozen stinky yak-wax prayer candles and the ongoing love triangle between Alicia, Marco, and Juana, played out at a decibel level that actually made the mini-blinds on the window jiggle when the 'suspense' music played on the television!

It finally broke on the afternoon when I gave up and started singing "POLO" everytime Alicia (or was it Juana?) said "ooooh, Marco!"

Needless to say, the remainder of my trips over to the coast for treatment were spent with friends and NOT in the hospital!

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Mudlark
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 03:48 PM

One of John's heart crises resulted in a stay at a Vet's Hospital about a 2-hr drive away. Since the drive was so long they let me spend quite a lot of time with him and one of his roomies was a real character. Old, grizzled guy, wearing a 10 gal. hat, fancy cowboy boots, a shirt with those metal type snap fasteners and contrasting piping. Things move slowly in a vet hosp. and he sat regaling us with stories of his life for nearly an hour before a nurse came in. He'd been everywhere, done everything, rode broncs, been in the Merchant Marines, and had been a truck driver for the last several years.

Altho his stories were entertaining they were nonstop, and we were both beginning to wonder why this dynamo was in the hospital at all. Altho we never did figure out what he was in for this was obviously not his first trip. The intake nurse came in, swished the curtain round his bed so the rest of this was sound effects only. First he was told to take off his hat, a moment of silence and the nurse says "Whoa..that's quite a scar you've got there!" and much talk followed about the metal plate in his head. Then she says, Do you wear false teeth? Please remove them...yes, both uppers and lowers. Then we hear her say, Yes, you can keep the hand prosthesis on for the time being. I'm afraid both boots will have to go. Then, from under the curtain, we see both boots come off and hit the floor, one with a wooden leg fitted into it!

By this time we are both in silent hysterics...as one piece after another comes off the Bionic Man. He was so good natured about it all, so matter of fact, and apparently had had all these accoutrements for many years and was doing very well, thank you. Later, John found he also had a glass eye....

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 06:04 PM

If Marion had not called Louise's friend Mary (who often visited Louise), when Louise never came back to their room at the nursing home after leaving for dialysis, Mary would never have called the priest (or actually me), and we (I) would never have called Louise's attorney Gary.

Gary and Hardi are (were) Louise's only next-of-kin (not actually related to her, she just had no family)..... but neither the nursing home nor the hospital called either of them, or anyone else, during the 8 hours after Louise's admission to the ICU, even as she obviously entered the active dying process....

So except for Marion and Mary, Louise would not have gotten last rites, nor would Gary have gotten a call about that Living Will Hardi told the ICU nurses about.... and Louise would have suffered a number of indignities she had specifically declined in her Living Will. She'd still be hooked up to a respirator despite her longterm, clear, and unequivocal desire to be done with all medical intervention beyond dialysis...

But because Marion DID call Mary and Mary DID go see Louise and trust her gut on what she saw and call us, Louise had one of the fastest exits I've ever seen of this sort (illness/old age). She got to hold hands and be prayed over by the people she loved best.... And she got herself planted this morning on the first clear, crisp dry in WEEKS, by what turned out to be a church full of friends who, you know, WERE her family.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 06:06 PM

When a person "gets themseves planted", dear, what is expected to grow?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 06:08 PM

Blessings of course! Wrapped in memories. Lots of opportunities: half the town jogs in that garden, while the other half is jogged over!

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 06:47 PM

Interesting relationship -- you might say a well grounded one! :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 07:08 PM

:~)

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Jun 03 - 09:36 PM

I was a military dependant when I was a boy and spent much more than my fair share of time in military hospitals. Things have gone down hill since then. Private rooms suck. TVs suck. Give me a ward, every time. At one end there would be a couch and a few chairs for those well enough to walk around. In a ward, there's always somebody to talk to. If there was a TV, and only one, the plug was pulled if it got loud enough for the nurse to hear it at the other end of the room. The nurse's attention might be split between 30 or 40 people but it didn't matter. If you were having a bad spell, some one would see and tell her.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 06:07 PM

GREAT THREAD! I suspect that I will make several contributions to this one. About a hundred years ago, I was seriously injured. Ruptered two discs ... hospital, traction for three weeks, etc. One of my bestest friends at the time thought I needed some uplifting company. He showed up one evening with his guitar and a bottle of Irish whiskey! The conversation was fine, as was the music. But it was the bottle of Irish Whiskey that did the trick. After a few shots, I was mellow, what with all the morphine, and I slept like a baby. HOWEVER, the very next night, I made the mistake of telling my 'night nurse' about the bottle of Irish whiskey that I had stashed in the bedside stand. Well, let me tell you. SHE BECAME A REAL FRIEND! True! She gave me long backrubs which felt great after lying on my back, in traction, for so long. Somehow, I don't remember the details, WE decided that she should help me get rid of the offending substance. I was very dissapointed that I never saw her again during the last four days of my imprisonment. I wonder how she is and where she is today? Oh well! CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: harvey andrews
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 06:38 PM

I'd had a head on car crash and needed plastic surgery on my severed nose and lip. They put me in a double room. Opposite me was a man who couldn't speak. His wife had left him and in deep depression he'd gone down to his garden shed to kill himself with a shotgun. At the last minute he must have pulled the gun away, for he shot off the side of his neck and his jaw. He lay there, and all I heard was laboured, liquid breathing.
His only visitors were his two sons, aged about fifteen and thirteen. When they came in I got a newspaper and hid behind it. Every day they berated him..how could you do this...who'll look after us..how do we cope..he couldn't answer because of his condition.
Every visit I hid behind the paper and silently begged them to show him some compassion. No on else visited, particularly not his wife.
After three nights of these kids giving him hell, they began to tell him that they were coping, and after a week the transformation happened. The two boys came in and sat down. One of them took his hand and said they were doing fine, the neighbours were helping, and they were getting the house clean and tidy for him to came home, and they loved him and it would all work out fine.
I was behind my newspaper in tears.
I wonder still what happened to the three of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 06:44 PM

Harvey Andrews: WHEW! Have you written the ballad yest? Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: harvey andrews
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 06:50 PM

Deckman, there's somethings even the wonderful vehicle of song can't support. Songs are like spider webs, fragile looking but capable of taking great weight. However, if the weight is too strong the web just disintegrates. I think sometimes you can go over the top. I've done it once or twice and lived to regret recording it. This is one story I think is too heavy for the gossamer web, but what I learned from it is in songs I wrote subsequently.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 07:29 PM

Harvey Andrews ... It's clear to me that you not only think as a poet, you also speak as poet. BLESS YOU! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Jun 03 - 10:13 PM

Back when I was five I had a couple days in the hospital to have my tonsils out.

The kid in the next bed was a lot older, maybe 8 or 9, and was enrolled in the local private "school for recalcitrant and troubled boys."

Why was he in? He told me that he and a couple of friends had found a shotgun shell, put it on a stump and hit it with a hammer. Two dead, one wounded.

After the operation, I was supposed to get ice cream!

He stole it.

He also stole my jello.

At five, this is BAD stuff. When I left I remember hiding his bedpan, and this was back when if you had to go, you used a bedpan. I guess I thought that it would teach him a lesson; I never thought that there might be more than one bedpan available per person.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Jim McLean
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 06:54 AM

Last year I was admitted to hospital suffering from Guillain Barre Syndrome. Oposite me was an old Cockney with leg problems and between us, further down the ward was the TV. One day a Glasgow man, big and fat, sat immediately in front of the telly, blocking everybody's view. The old Cokney asked him if he would move aside a bit but the Scot answered 'Naw'!
'You Jocks are just like piles,' said the old Londoner. 'When you come down and go back up you're OK, but when you come down and stay down, you're a pain in the arse'.
I thought I'd die laughing!
Jim McLean

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: SINSULL
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 06:58 PM

I was only in a hospital once. I detested sharing a room with three other women and got myself released in four days instead of the required ten. The complaining old lady to my right was annoyed as hell. "How come she gets to leave? I have been here days longer than she has." GROAN. No more hospitals for me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add - The Chestnut Ward
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 07:22 PM

Here's a song I wrote about this kind of thing a few years ago:

In the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night,
propped up on your pillow you wait till it gets light.
And though your body's aching, you know that it's all right,
in the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night.
And over in the distance, in a little pool of light,
there's a nurse, she's busy writing
all that stuff they've got to write.
But you know that if you called her
she'd be right there by your side
and she'd tuck you in and give you stuff to help you feel all right.

And all around me sleeping are a bunch of broken men,
who came here to the Chestnut Ward to get patched up again,
and we've talked all day about our lives
and the choices that we made,
and it's hard to believe we only
met each other yesterday.
In the Chestnut Ward...

Old men who fought, so long ago, against the fall of night,
and one who went to prison, for he wouldn't go to fight.
And one who had a comrade who was killed by Uncle Sam -
and me, I was a baby then, in a shelter, in a pram.
Well, it's something like a prison camp, and something like a jail,
and all of us are frightened, men, though some are tough as nails.
And we all are tired and hopeful - we're tired of all the pain,
and we're waiting till the morning when we hope we'll walk again.
In the Chestnut Ward....

But they're closing down the Chestnut Ward,
that's what the papers say.
And the people who have helped us here
will go their separate ways.
There's a cheaper way to do it, and the Chestnut Ward won't pay
when you're getting back to basics in the modern kind of way.
Well the ones who'd close the Chestnut ward,
I'd cut them back to size.
I'd cut them into pieces, along with all their lies.
And I'd leave them lying broken - and I wouldn't even care.
Still, perhaps they might get mended - if the Chestnut Ward's still there.

In the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night,
propped up on your pillow you wait till it gets light.
And though your body's aching, you know that it's all right,
in the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night.
And over in the distance, in a little pool of light,
there's a nurse, she'd busy writing
all that stuff they've got to write.
But I know that if I called her
she'd be right there by my side
to tuck me in and give me stuff to help me feel all right.
In the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night,
propped up on your pillow you wait till it gets light.
And though your body's aching, you know that it's all right,
in the Chestnut Ward, in the middle of the night.

The Chestnut Ward was in St Margaret's |Hospital, Epping. It was where they did the operations on joints. I was in for a knee operation, after falling downstairs a few months earlier.

They stuck all the men up one end of the ward. Most of us were in for hip replacements.It was an old-fashioned sort of ward with rows of beds along either side. And it was a whole lot better than the more modern wards in Harlow Hospital. And they hadn't modernised the approach to patient care either, thank God.

A lot of the talk was about the war - most of the men were hip replacment patients, a generation ahead of me. One of them had been a conscientious objector, another was still bitter about how a friend of his was shot and killed by a trigger happy American sentry. No antagonism between the old soldier and the conchie.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 08:30 PM

McGrath ... that's an amazing story, and a more amazing song! Thank you. Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: SINSULL
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 08:52 PM

An amazing song. Would the nurse really come if you called? Mine only came when a roomiee shouted "She's going to vomit!" The B****H told me "If you throw up on yourself, I will leave you in it the rest of the night." I was four hours out of major surgery. A regular Clara Barton was she.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jun 03 - 10:28 PM

She, Sins, you got a flair for latching on to winners, or what?? Whheeeeeoooo!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: LadyJean
Date: 01 Jul 03 - 12:35 AM

Ten years ago, I slipped on a cement floor, and smashed my elbow to bits. It was right after "The Big Snow" and the orthopedic floor was busy, so I had a room to myself, mostly. My friend Animal X, (that's what she calls herself!) Is perfectly wonderful in a crisis. She got me through the emergency room, and convinced me to have the surgery. She also tried to convince the surgeon that she was family, so she could be with me in the recovery room. She called every out of town friend I had, from my home phone. But she left my wash in the washing machine. It smelled very interesting when I got home.
My mother's brother died when he was 19, because his surgeon kept him in bed for 3 days after an appendectomy, and he developed an embolism.
My mother married a man who could have been her brother's twin. I spent the day after the surgery thinking, "I'm going to have to get out of bed. I don't want to get out of bed. I know WHY I'm going to have to get out of bed. I wonder if mother would have married dad if Uncle William had gotten out of bed after his appendectomy."
After excessive consideration, I decided she would have, but sooner than she did.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 08:17 AM

I still have a couple but I'm enjoying the hell out of these! Keep it up folks!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 10:59 AM

Most recently.

A man in his late 50s dealing with Lymphoma. He was overly cheery when I came into the room but it didn't take me long to realize this was going to be a problem. His wife and teen age daughters were there virtually all day every day, and he he was extremely rude to them. Then I realized he was going in and out of a very confused state. He used terrible language with all three and constantly demanded that they take him home. Most of the time he seemed not to know exactly where he was, and when they'd tell him, he insist they were lying and that he was going to punch them in their f******g faces. This gets very hard to take after a while, although it seemed that the family were used to it. Made me wonder what the guy was like when he WAS well and at home. Righty or wrong, I had very bad feelings about his general character.

I tried not to get into any conversations with him after they'd left but it was almost impossible and as I suspected he started asking me for confirmation that the hospital staff were out to get him, and wanted me to dial his phone for him at two in the morning!

I knew I was only going to be in for a couple more days so I just toughed it out, but "hoooo boy"!

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 11:53 AM

Good story Rick. Once when I was stuck in hospital bed for three weeks of traction, they wheeled a flippin' teenager into MY room. That was viable proof that they not only didn't know or care about me at all but that they didn't even care if the youngster lived or died. ANYONE who had listened to me for two minutes would have KNOWN never to put me in the same county with a teenager, let alone the same room! Anyway, it wasn't long before the battles began: TV or no TV. (I won) Rock music? Again I won. Many visitors all day long (mostly teenagers again) I lost. After two days of the crap, I was getting desperate so I pulled out my secret weapon ... threats ... but ONLY in Finnish! At first he was curious as to what I was mumbling. But after I added the eyeball to eyeball contact, he began to get nervous. I knew I was winning when I awoke from one of my drug induced dreams to hear him begging the nurse to move him to another room. After he had been successfully placed in some other room (I was hoping it was the morgue) the charge nurse come in to chew me out. I just stared at her and spoke Finn! (I know I was bad, but I had to do SOMETHING!). CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: GUEST,KB
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 12:00 PM

My grandfather was a real gentleman and was unfailingly polite in normal life, however when he was in his 80s he had to have an appendectomy - and the general anaesthetic upset his mind for a few days.
He believed he was back in World War 1, and that the nurses and doctors wanted to kill him. He was very unpleasant to everyone and verbally abusive to the staff. When he got back home he told us he had "been to hell and back". I daresay that everyone that met him during that time must have thought he was a really unpleasant person, and I suppose that for a while he was.
Fortunately he was soon back to his loveable self. Hopefully it was the same for Rick's room mate.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 12:27 PM

It is kind of funny at times in retrospect......the post-op stuff. In '99 many of you recall the "Spaw's about to croak" threads and the bad times then (sorry Garg, I'm still here Buddy). I had an aortic dissection which before it was diagnosed caused some extreme pain. I don't remember a thing after I walked into the hospital but they gave me a very common pain killer called "Versed." Unknown at the time was that I was allergic to the stuff and when I became even more restless, they gave me more! I was life-flighted to Mt. Carmel where they induced a coma to control both my heart rate and blood pressure and ME as well.

I guess I became extremely combative to the point of being restrained. The vascular Doc was completely freaked as I evidentally attacked him! After I was controlled and a coma induced, they talked to Karen about me and she couldn't believe it....and the Docs didn't really want to believe her. But after being told by her and other close friends that I am nothing like that, they finally figured that something else was the problem.

The funny thing here is that 2 months later when I was at the Vascular Docs office, he was still pretty leery of me!!! He walked in and stood by the door as we talked. He came over and quickly listened to some heart sounds and then moved back to the wall by the door and finished up his conversation there. I could see he was a bit scared and I apologized and told him myself that it was the drug reaction. He said he knew that but he never left the door til he walked out!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: JenEllen
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 01:12 PM

Yeah, Spaw, I hear ya. Once, in recovery, I apparently took to challenging people to basketball games, and yelled at a 5ft tall little Japanese nurse. He obviously didn't want to play one-on-one because he was afraid I was going to "kick his aaaassssssssss".

I'm not sure this qualifies as a 'roommate' deal, but after my surgery in March, I woke up in a private room. Wonderful, and "L" shaped, so all you could see from the door was the foot of the bed. Pure privacy, and I was digging it. However, the guy next door kept yelling "WHAT TIME IS IT???" every five minutes, and I finally got to thinking: "What time is it? Time for me to hit the morphine plunger again, you loud bastard." ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I got some sleep, and when I woke up, he was at it again: "WHAT TIME IS IT?" and I'm thinking it's bathroom time because the liters of IV fluid they gave me had kicked in and I really had to pee. I was wrapped pretty tight, and had to do some strange contortions to get out of the bed, but I finally get up, get the IV pole and lines together and start shuffling for the bathroom. About halfway there the pole runs over the lines, snags all over the place, etc. The woman across the hall LEAPS out of her bed, comes over and simultaneously shuts the bathroom door, unravels me, and starts leading me out INTO THE HALLWAY!   

So there I am, in serious need of expurgation, standing in the hallway with some stranger, yards from my intended target, crying (not a drop of saline in my tears, it was pure morphine) "But I have to PEEEEEEEEE!!!!"   Then Mr. X. bellows again "WHAT TIME IS IT?"

We must have driven the nurses crazy.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 01:52 PM

I would have just bought the guy a cheap K-Mart clock! You could have announce the time every minute or so for a couple of hours, but he probably would have liked that.

I was in a mixed-company ward (with optionally drawn curtains around each bed) when I had my wisdom teeth out. I wasn't awake much afterwards. I swore they were giving me something other than Tylenol, but apparently the anesthetic they gave me for the surgery took DAYS to work out of my system. I was more sociable then than I am now and I sort of enjoyed what time I DID manage to remain awake. We played darts (it was in England), cards, talked about our lives. We all knew when it was time for the guy on the end to go soak his 'roids, and the woman in the next bed who'd had a miscarriage wasn't so alone. I probably couldn't stand it now, though.

I've only been in hospital for semi-elective stuff: wisdom teeth, knee surgery, sinus surgery, and I've never had a weird roommate. If it's true there's always one weirdo per room, I guess we know what that means!

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 02:05 PM

Sounds a fun time there JE!!!!!

Here's "family as roomie" story. After the quad by-pass they allowed Karen and "immediate family" in the CCU rooms. We alwyas list Connie and Wayne as sister/brother or something so they have access. I had made Karen agree to go to an important school meeting no matter whether I had come to in recovery or not. Wayne stayed in the room for a few hours as it turned out and he was there when I first came around after surgery. This was my first experience on a Vent (sadly not my last) and it's a bit scary when you first wake up.

In any case, Wayne is one of the most empathic, kind, and gentle ppersons I know. As I start to come round he takes my hand and it's very reassuring. Wayne is a Physician's Assistant after a 25 year career as a Paramedic/EMT. The nurse comes in and checks me over and makes adjustments to the array of tubes that are plumbed in after heart surgery. I'm very awake by the time she leaves and Wayne walks back over to the bed. I try to ask him where Karen is and of course you can't talk on a Vent so I'm playing "Charades." I point to where my wedding ring was and that kind of thing trying to get my message across. So Wayne begins playing signing things back at me trying to tell me!!! I made the motions of writing and he looked around and found paper and pencil and gave it to me. I wrote, "YOU can talk." Wayne looked at it, shook his head with chagrin, and then just cracked up and if I had been able to laugh I would have. Like I say, he's very empathic and it just seemed natural to him that if I couldn't talk, he couldn't either!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Amos
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 02:35 PM

LOL!! What a great guy, Spaw!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 09:36 PM

When my twins were born I was in the hospital for 5 days. My roommate also had twins, but she had been there a very long time, and one of the babies was in a different hospital. All this to say, she was feeling good and had little to occupy her time.

Her husband came to the room everyday at 3 o'clock and stayed until 11 o'clock that night. It sure was hard to do the necessary "aftercare" and still maintain some privacy.

Although I was still young and naive about wanting my husband to share everything with me, I sure was glad he didn't hang around all day!

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: InOBU
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 09:38 PM

Right:
Here goes. Had a cist removed from right above the vocal cords. Took out strap tendons and a bit of bone to get it out. So, well, the hospital was not sure if my union insurence had vested, so I was discharged less than 24 hours after the op, while I could not swallow water, with a bunch of pills to take. So, here I am, my wife taking care of me at the mum's house, can't talk, complications begin around 3 AM so off they take me back to the hospital. Well, I am in the emergency room, waiting, no praying for a shot of something for the pain. They have uncovered the railroad track on my neck, big second smile under me chin, and there is the bus driver from the Simpsons looking to hook me up to an IV, and me, happy I could not say, Yes that is me, as he calles my name pushing an IV. In the next bed they are interviewing a pshyc patient, not supposed to do that in the ER, I find out later. Well, she is getting more and more angry at the Dr. So, I FINALLY get the pain shot and am, all floaty and wonderful, but I hear the Dr. say, right, if that is how you are going to be, you can just sit here awhile. I am thinking, great, here I am incapasitated next to an angry person with my neck open... She begins to throw things. Then the curtin between our beds is torn back and I cover my throat just in time for her to start whiping me with the bell to call the nurce, a big mettal end on it. I leap out of bed in slow motion and begin to try to run accross the ER, as she begins to throw things and turn over beds chasing me, as Drs and nurces try to catch her. At the end of the ward, I run smack into the Simpson's Bus driver kid who grabs my arm band and says, Ah Larry Otway, I am supposed to give you an IV. I pull his ear against my mouth and his (can't talk... remember) F* the IV catch the Looney! That's not my job he tells me. I shove him away, just as the lady has gotten under the feet of a ring of doctors surounding her and is moments away from grabbing me. I run to the other side of the ward where I see this HUGE nurce. Right, that is the safe harbour, thinks I and I get behind her... Your first operation at St. Vincint's she asks. At that moment, the husband of a law school friend who is a sergion at that hospital arives on the ward. No, he says to her, it isn't that this is normal at St. Vincints, that is my friend Larry, this is normal for his life. And so it is, how is that for a roomate at the hospital, Rick?
Cheers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 09:45 PM

...an aside...Spaw, when you mentioned telling the staff that Wayne and Connie were family...

A dear friend of ours (the age of our fathers) was in ICU at the small hospital here in town, staffed by a lot of nuns. When Hubby went to see our friend he told the nun in charge that he was the bastard stepson...she never batted an eye...he walked right in!

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 02 Jul 03 - 09:55 PM

To "InOBU" Delightful story. What key are you going to sing it in? SHEEEUH! Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 02:54 AM

Well, I've only been in for birthing babies and a hysterectomy and had pretty nice roomies. The second kid was so easy I was only in overnight. My roommate was a hairdresser and had had an easy time of it, too, so we literally sat up all night talking beauty tips and other young mother things. I'll never forget her as I started using salon shampoo and conditioner because of her and my daughters and I have always had beautiful hair. She also gave me a tip about diluting shampoo with half water as they are usually so concentrated it was a good way to stretch the dollars spent on the more expensive brands!

When I was in a regular room, after recovering from the hysterectomy, my roommate was a really nice older woman. Rog and I were not married, yet, though living together. When he came to visit me, he brought me a HUGE tee-shirt as a nightie. I think he scandalised her a little bit when he unfurled it and held it up for me to read. It said "Nobody does it better!"

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 11:25 AM

Not a story about room-mates but......

Everything's run by computer these days, and last year when I had a kidney removed this happened. I had about five IVs in me and one (or all) seemed to be controlled by a box the size of a cassette player hanging there on the IV terminal. At about three in the morning the thing started beeping and eventually a nurse came in to check it out. She seemed totally confused...and I started to panic. She started it up again, but it started beeping about ten minutes later. No response from the nurse so I pushed the button. She grumpily came back, fiddled around with it, and then called in another nurse. The two of them were peering at a tiny manual with the aid of a small flashlite for about ten minutes....they really DIDN'T have a clue!

They at least got it to stop beeping, but I was pretty paranoid by that point and lay there with one eye open for the next five hours until someone came in who DID know how to work it.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Amos
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 11:27 AM

Geeze, Rick, the thought of having your kidneys controlled by Microsoft is downright unnerving!! Glad you escaped that loop!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: InOBU
Date: 03 Jul 03 - 12:14 PM

Let's all pray for Rick, that his kidney is not being run with a Windows XP operating system! CHeers Larry

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Benjamin
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 03:59 AM

When I was 14, I got hit by a car. Wasn't too serious, but kept me in the hospital for a few days while they x-rayed away and tried to figure out what to do. My roommate was a kid from some near town, I can't remember exactly where. He was out camping with his mother and stepfather, and for his trip, his real father had made him a gigantic sling shot that could shoot boulders (I'm not sure how it could, or how he loaded them, but this is the honest story the entire family gave me). I guess he just wasn't careful enough with one boulder as it feel on him. He had someone in his immeadiate family almost the entire time, and they were friendly people. I never actually got see what happened to him though. I'm still trying to picture a kid launching boulders with a giant slingshot, and just how that could possibly go wrong???
Benjamin

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 07:52 AM

Boy, Rick, that's scary!

Reminds me of when I had my vision test, and the machine was broken where it was supposed to tell the technician the strength of the particular lens I was looking through. I overheard one technician telling another, "Just count the clicks." Now being a teacher, I recognized "the ole blank stare,"...the poor girl had no idea what was going on. My new glasses were so far off it was like looking through frosted glass. And the sad thing was that the doctor tried to deny that a mistake had been made until I confronted him and got a retest. (took 6 weeks to get new glasses)

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 02:00 PM

Not a bad hospital roommate story -- a nice one. When I had my last child I requested rooming-in service (baby stays with mother instead of in a nursery). I also had a bit of surgery while I was there that required anaesthetic. When they brought me back to my hospital bed I was quite woozy. The nurse put me into bed, tucked my new baby into my arms, and left without putting the side railing of the bed up. I virtually passed out, still under the influence of the anaesthetic.

My roommate saw that my baby was slowly slipping out of my arm on the side of the bed where the railing wasn't up, and got out of bed to put the railing up. Trouble was, she had had her baby by Caesarean section 2 hours before, and had to hold one arm across her incision while she -- very slowly -- walked across to my bed and put the railing up with one hand. I shudder to think what might have happened had she not done it. Good lady -- we knew each other for several years.

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 06:43 PM

This story is also not one of roommates, but rather like some of the horror tales. About 6 years ago, I had triple bi-pass heart surgery. For whatever reason, probably my Finn stuborness, I came awake before they were done. I was closed up but the team was doing the scrubbing off of the blood and stuff, you know, all the left over nuts and bolts. I went back to sleep and woke again later in the ICU room. As I became concious, a nurse was adjusting stuff around me. I said, "Hi, good to see you again." She asked what the heck I meant. I said, well I recognise you from the surgery room. The look on her face was priceless. She rushed out and came back with two Doctors, one of which was the anesthesiologist. They both questioned me in great detail as to what I could remember. I told one of them that I recognised him by his hairy arms! They both freaked out, but I thought it was funny. For the rest of my stay in the hospital, I got excellant care. CHEERS, Bob

Subject: RE: BS: Hospital Roommates**Got a Story???
From: LadyJean
Date: 04 Jul 03 - 09:01 PM

When I broke my arm, I spent three hours in the emergency room, with an unsplinted fracture. That hurts! Two and a half hours into my stay, I was wheeled into the x ray room. I told the x ray technician that I was likely to use a little bad language, because I was in a lot of pain. She said, "That's all right, just don't bite me." It seems several of her adult patients had.
I didn't bite. I didn't swear. But, at the end I said, "I hope all your children grow up to vote Republican." She said she wished I'd bitten her.