Hospital Blogging (No medical information included)

Hospitals are peculiar places. You go to the emergency room, they determine whether you are going to (a) die no mater what they do, (b) live no matter what they do, or (c) could go either way and could use some assistance making sure it tips the right way. You get the best care if you're in category c, as I can attest from the times I had chest pains. You always get taken care of quickly if you have chest pain and you always get helped very slowly if you have a broken finger. It's called triage, so if you want fast service in an emergency room always say you have chest pains. Just like if you want to get through to PECO just say you smell gas.

Once you're in the emergency room the same rules apply. Once they know you're not going to die, you might as well not be there. In the chest pain example, I got test test test test and then hours of nothing until they told me I could go. They never figured out what was wrong with me, just that I wasn't likely to die in the next 24 hours. My regular doctor figured it out the next day in about 5 minutes and it wasn't anything serious.

During this particular visit, this led to us sitting in the emergency room bed for 2 1/2 hours waiting to go to our actual room. Then we moved to the 5th floor and just as we were getting settled, again up to the 6th floor. Once you're settled, get ready for a series of petty annoyances, getting poked, prodded, measured and to be asked for various bodily fluids.

My favorite thing about this place is the Nourishment Room. I think every place should have a Nourishment Room. In this place the Nourishment Room is kind of like the snack room at my fraternity, except with way more formula and frozen breast milk and not nearly as many chips. Cereal, peanut butter, milk and juice, that kind of stuff. Everything neatly labeled with a label maker.

Nourishment Room is typical of the odd kinds of signs you see in hospitals, like Bed Management Office, but my favorite sign here isn't hospital specific. It just says, "This Door is Closed."