TANGENTS by John Saccenti: Despite the obvious health benefits a hospital provides, the place is depressing.
By: John Saccenti
There may be no place worse than a hospital to get better.
Sure, it’s an excellent place for treatment. Have a bullet wound? Head to the hospital. Need something lanced, sliced or removed? You know where to go. Have something too scary for words? Find a doctor, a counselor, a surgeon or anything else you need and get to the hospital.
But, if you’ve ever found yourself sitting, no, lying in an adjustable hospital bed flipping though the TV channels and inexplicably looking forward to the next tray of food or blood test from a less-than-enthused "care provider," then you know what I’m talking about. Once your treatment is complete and you’re on the road to recovery, the place just gets depressing. The lighting is odd and, yes, it smells funny, and after just a few days your back aches, it’s impossible to sleep and a trip to the door has become the equivalent of a great adventure.
It’s a soul-sucking experience to say the least, and during my last two trips I swear I actually started to feel worse the longer I stayed, despite my slowly improving health.
Over the past year I’ve been admitted to the hospital twice, both times for symptoms related to Crohn’s disease. The first was about a year ago when I had a flare-up and had to be taken to the emergency room at the University Medical Center at Princeton. After a few days of medication and no food, I felt ready to leave.
Unfortunately, the doctors that be didn’t, and I sat there, no, lay there, on my bed for a few days more, bored and fighting off depression. That it rained nearly the whole time didn’t help and I’m pretty sure the nurses went out of their way to keep me hooked to my IV even if I didn’t need it. Was I being punished for my carefree attitude during my first few days there? (How was I supposed to know patients weren’t allowed to leave hospital grounds?)
More recently, Feb. 20, I had surgery for the same Crohn’s disease. The big event was held at the University of Pennsylvania, a much busier and noisier place than Princeton. At times I was half-conscious from morphine, or stumbling around like a zombie, leaning on my IV stand and hoping not to trip over my catheter. Other times I just hurt all over, a reminder that I’d just had surgery to remove all sorts of things from underneath my once ripped abs. (You’ll have to take my word for it. Washboard).
And forget sleeping. If you’ve ever been in the hospital for any length of time you know that there is no off switch. Two in the morning sounds the same as 2 in the afternoon. Nurses are talking, large rickety carts on squeaky wheels are bumping from wall to wall, visitors and family are talking and the guy in the bed next to you is snoring to C-Span.
This last item sick people is a biggie when it comes to not getting better at the hospital.
Sick people are depressing, especially when you’re one of them. The ones I’ve been around are noisy. When I first woke up from my surgery, my roommate immediately began talking, not a problem, but it was after 1 in the morning. Last year, I had to hear heartbreaking pleas to live from a wife to her husband with the curtain that usually blocked my view of them wide open. During my recent stay, every single one of us patients looked like we’d been through hell and wanted nothing more than to fall asleep wherever we happened to be at that moment, which happened more times than not.
On the plus side however, I did have a button to help with the pain and another to call a nurse. But as fascinating as they are, the novelty of buttons attached to your body eventually wears off. (One word of advice. Never press a button labeled "NURSE" if it’s hanging in a bathroom. It’s not the same. However, if you do hit it, the nurses will actually show up fairly quickly. A novelty in and of itself during my stay at Penn.)
When you’re in the hospital, getting visitors is always a nice way to break up the day, right? Not if you’re counting the two or three times a day blood tests, temperature-checking and questions about the consistency of your bowel movements.
As bad as they are, hospital stays are a necessary evil, as I’m sure many of you are unfortunate enough to know.
But, I can’t help but think that recovery would have been faster if they just let me lie on the couch at home.
After all, if I’m going to have morphine induced hallucinations and pain that makes me double over, then what better place to be than on MY couch, with MY television and MY family.
John Saccenti is news editor for The Cranbury Press and South Brunswick Post. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

