Post-surgery thoughts about hospitals

I still don’t have a lot to say about the surgery and its sequelae. I sure do hate modern hospitals, Jewish too in spite of its being one of the best. The care-givers were lovely, almost without exception, and I have no complaint about them and how they did their job. The place is entirely too NOISY—god damn it—and it would be nice if they could do something about that. And they measured your temperature and made you account for your urine in a plastic bottle and every few hours stuck a needle in you and frequently pulled tape off your skin. I had roommates, which made the place too crowded for all. I was glad to get the hell out of there. The anesthesia made me visually hallucinate, especially in a dark room, and cognitively impaired me for a while. And I cannot believe how slowly the hours passed. Especially the hours from darkness to dawn. I refused to watch TV and some of the time felt well enough to work on a crossword, but even with activities the time took forever to pass. But pass it did at last, and we left at 8:30 or quarter to nine Thursday, well after dark, which Rosie didn’t want. Rosie was there every day and how dear her presence was to me. And Amanda will surely earn a high place in heaven for her care of the sick. She walked with me and joked with me and we had a wonderful time. Oh yes, and the food was wretched most of the time, although I think the anesthesia probably had a lot to do with that. One thing about walking was I got to do a lot of farting, which seemed like a good idea at the time. I was very happy also to see Natalie on the weekend—actually, she showed up on Friday and she and Amanda spent a good deal of time with me. Ella, Mary, Randall, and Kelsey popped in for a while on the weekend. I do recall Randy offered “a word of prayer" for me—and I was grateful for that, although I have no idea what he said.