Things I WON'T miss about the hospital

It's official: I'm homesick. As I prepare to hopefully go home on Sunday, here are a few of the things I'm looking forward to saying not-so-fond farewells to:

RP: I joke with people that RP and I are not on speaking terms at the moment. He and I have one of those love/hate relationships that Zack described in his earlier post. RP has been good to me, but I will NOT miss unplugging him and wheeling his big butt across the room to get a fork, let alone go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
Beeping: As I mentioned in my post “I’m beeping,” the machines on RP beep countless times throughout the day, and you can only silence them for 10-20 seconds at a time. To make life even more exciting, some of the alarms aren’t able to be silenced. I’d like to have a word with the genius who came up with that fantastic idea.
Having to measure my daily input and output: Input is the amount and type of fluids you drink. If you don’t know what output is, it would be a little too awkward to explain it here.
Being woken up several times a night to have my temperature, oxygen saturation level, and blood pressure checked and my blood drawn: Enough said.
Funky smells: the antibacterial hand rinse, the antimicrobial soap, the bleach used to disinfect the counters, the food trays, and even the towels start to offend your nostrils after the first couple weeks of being here. These are smells that even our Glade Warm Vanilla air freshener can’t overcome (though we’ve been told repeatedly that our room is the best-smelling room on the unit, a fact which I’m quite proud of).
Sleeping in a hospital bed: the mattress is hard, the pillows are lumpy, and the bed is a twin, which means Zack has to sleep on the couch across from me. I have to get a massage just to work out the kinks in my back.
Being confined to a 20’ by 20’ space: Our one-bedroom apartment is a castle compared to my hospital room.
Wearing a mask whenever I leave the room: It’s not only annoying and uncomfortable, but makes conversation nearly impossible. I have to shout to be understood by anyone, and talking creates a humidity inside the mask which causes a line of sweat to form above my top lip. Highly attractive, I know. As I take it off, I always imagine the sound Darth Vader’s mask makes as he removes it, like gas escaping from a valve. Hssssss....
Processed food and hospital food: With the exception of BBQ pizza and Shanghai noodles, hospital food can never beat a good home-cooked meal. Yes, even the French fries and chicken tenders lose their appeal after awhile, and Easy Mac DEFINITELY gets old when you eat it every day for two weeks.
Sandpaper towels: You would think the new ones would at least be soft at first, but I’m starting to think the hospital just buys them scratchy to begin with because, with daily washings in bleach and who knows what other chemicals, they probably figure, “They’re going to lose their softness in a day anyway! Let’s save some money!” You know it’s bad when you start using hospital blankets to dry off after a shower rather than towels.

Flushing the toilet: the flush on the toilets in these bathrooms sounds like a tornado is tearing through the unit. The sound of a toilet flushing three times in a row at 5 am this morning woke me out a deep and peaceful sleep. Why someone would flush a toilet three times in a row is a separate issue.

Coming soon...“Things I WILL miss about the hospital.” :)