Lighten Your Limbs With Friends

@retiredteacher that distance is not bad then, probably better than our trip to Boston. It's an hour drive but during the day, with traffic, we always leave two hours to get there.
I have an overnight bag and I keep a few essentials in there always, so maybe I am OCD too!
I hope they will not keep him, but if they do and you can stay in his room, I hope they have a way to make you comfortable.
JK

Hospitals don't intend to make visitors comfortable. But, when they knew I couldn't leave, they did what they could to make me comfortable too. At first I slept in a recliner from WWI! Then they got a fold-up cot, and that was better. At the time, it didn't matter as long as I was in the room with my husband. I ate in the hospital cafeteria, and occasionally the nurses would allow me to order my meal sent when they sent his. The cafeteria was a mile trek or at least it seemed like it. I always take my laptop and research everything they say is going on. That way I don't have to wonder about the doc-speak. We can laugh now and say that was our vacation. It was enough for several vacations! Hospital costs and everything that goes with them are astronomical. But we survived it and now if they admit him, it's usually a test that is an overnight or three day stay. Just hoping things are stable and they send us home.
Carol

@retiredteacher I was very surprised, my brother lives in Maine but had a hospital stay in Boston and the rooms were equipped for the spouse to stay if so desired!

I always take my iPad to doctor appointments too so I don’t have to touch magazines there. There are probably a lot of germs on those magazines.

Did your insurance not pay for his stay? I hope that all is OK and you don’t need to stay this time.
JK

@jk. I always take my Nook too so that I can read while waiting. I try not to touch anything. I believe hospitals are the worst for germs; after all it's sick people. Sick people = germs! Our insurance was good, but hospitals and some doctors don't take every insurance, so that's why I say it was our vacation. Lately, they are raising co-pays and all costs for medical anything. Such greed!
Carol

@retiredteacher we have been very fortunate in how our insurance has covered almost everything. My transplant totaled about $500,000 but we paid a pittance. I pay more for some drug co-pays than I have for doctors and hospitals.
When I went on Medicare I also got the best supplental. My husband thought I was overdoing it but I just had a feeling that we would be glad I had, and we were. My parents both died in their 60s from heart problems so that was what I was anticipating, never cirrhosis and a liver transplant. That was a real curveball.
JK

@contentandwell We never know what curve balls life is going to throw us. Since my husband and I are both adopted and back in the dark ages there was no information on anything, especially health records. We were both healthy all our young and middle aged lives---no problems: a cold, or a 24 hour virus, but nothing serious. Then when we hit mature age (hate to say old), the body started sputtering and having never been sick, we are always surprised. Doctors say Ron's heart problems are genetic and that my diabetes is too, although we don't know that from family history since we don't have any. We just have to take what comes and deal with it.
Happy New Year's Eve!
Carol

@retiredteacher I love that, "mature age". I hate it when they refer to someone on the news, younger than I am, as "elderly". I also get purple marks on my arms sometimes and discovered that they are called "senile purpura". What??? Senile simply because they are most often on older people? How insulting! I actually checked the definition of senile thinking maybe it had a broader meaning than I realized, but it does not.
I do have family history, and it's all from heart problems, both of my parents passed away in their 60s. So far, I do not have any, only my brother does but he has been fairly sedentary. My sister read recently that a too sedentary lifestyle is as much of a health hazard as smoking.
If my parents had lived longer I wonder if they would have had other health problems. I don't think they screened as much back then for diabetes, and I think what was considered to be high blood pressure was higher than it is now.
JK

@jk I don't even like the word retired. In fact, I can't think of any word that accurately describes being mature that is pleasant. I like the cultures that consider their elders as wise.That suits me better because I know as mature adults we are definitely wise. Sage may be even better since it has more depth of meaning than wise. I don't think there was a lot of information about the diseases that plague people these days. Years ago, people were given whatever the doctor thought would help and more often than not, the person died. I never remember hearing about diabetes or heart disease or other illnesses that we are aware of now. We went to the doctor when we were sick or the doctor made a house call and treated us the best he knew. That was the way it was in medicine. Many changes in doctoring as in everything else.
Carol

@retiredteacher So true on all counts. I like sage also. This past week when my son, daughter, and son-in-law were around I came up with a solution for something that impressed my very brilliant son-in-law. I told him it was from experience. It's amazing how much young people do not come up with solutions as easily as we do at our more sage ages.
JK

@jk I hate to say, but I saw it happen when I was teaching. Students don't think and can't figure things out because they are too accustomed to running to the computer and looking it up or asking a robot that tells them the answer. In the last years when I was teaching, if I said, "Today we are NOT going to the computers; we are going to think for ourselves from our own brains." They couldn't do it. It was the saddest part of teaching to see them not use their own brains. We always say about anything we ignore, "Use it or lose it." That's what's happened. They haven't used their ability to think and they have lost it. They want someone or something to tell them.
Awful!
Carol