What do you do in hospital ?

[Mr Ploppy]

Yes I know there's been a few hospital threads recently.
For those who have had to stay in hospital for a while, how did you manage interacting with other patients ?

Myself I have my digital radio & headphones, they go on in the morning and rarely come off. That way I don't have to deal with inane football conversations and boring discussions about their conditions. And now due to the wonders of technology I have my laptop.

I'm staggered with some patients, they seem to have no inititive whatsoever, simply re-reading the same newspaper over and over and then scanning around hungry for a conversation, bloody time thief, bugger off Luckily my headphones protect me most of the time. This is one situation where I have no desire to be part of anything.
I'm not being anti-social, I talk to people all the time, I hate the attitude that somehow because we're in a ward we have something in common. The ward system is horible anyway, crappy throwback to army camp style hospitals. It's hardly natural to throw a load of strangers into a room and have them sleeping there.

Their families are just as bad, can't they even bring them a small radio or something to keep them occupied, they don't even bring a change of pyjamas half the time. Slag families i suppose

Ok this was a bit of a rant more than anything, but all it takes is a bit of thought.

[Mr Ploppy]

Jesus, nosey bastards hovering around like a hawk trying to see what i'm doing on the laptop, or catch my eye then that's them got you snared into a boring chat.

[Twoflower]

When I was in hospital we weren't allowed Internet, or phones, I just read books all day...

[Vastaux]

I havent been in a hospital ever much at all, never personally., but waching stuff like Holby (Lol)... dont beds have curtains round them, could you not ask for them to be closed, even a little bit?

[Mr Ploppy]

There's still a supposed phone ban here, but the doctors & nurses are on theirs for work & personal, so they could hardly say the patients can't use theirs. NHS Glasgow has it's own patient wi-fi now for laptops etc, it's not a problem as long as you use headphones and are considerate, but not one nurse knew about it, i had to tell them.

[maybellinesmom]

What do you do iin hospital?

Get out as quick as you can!!!

[Mr Ploppy]

I close them myself about 9pm, but during the day they're worried you will keel over and not get seen.

Originally Posted by Kotr

I havent been in a hospital ever much at all, never personally., but waching stuff like Holby (Lol)... dont beds have curtains round them, could you not ask for them to be closed, even a little bit?

[Mr. Nobody]

where are you and what's wrong Mr Ploppy?,.. if you don't mind me asking,.. ( I was in the new Viccy the other day for x-rays,.. and it was tres chic )

hope it's nothing too serious.

personally,..I just couldn't be in a ward,.. sleep at night would be almost impossible, and, as you say,. almost no privacy and people trying to engage you in boring, middle of the road conversations to pass the time.

I also think I'd rather fester than have a sponge bath,..

those gowns ain't too flattering either.

here's to a speedy recovery Plopster.

[Mr Ploppy]

Just stuff, cheers. What would you do if you had to go in then ?
The thing is if you have to be in hospital there's usually no choice to being in a ward. Most hospitals, especially this old pile The Royal Inf, don't have many single rooms, and those are usually kept for severe disease cases and the like.
The new Glasgow Southern General hospital, the biggest in Europe, is being built now and is all single rooms. This was mostly for disease control, but also because many patients feel the same as me, they don't want to be bothered all the time. It's taken this long for them to get an inkling.

Gowns are ususally only worn by those who are going for a procedure, or have no family to bring them pyjamas, or families too tight or stupid to bring them pyjamas.

[KarateGirl]

When I've been in hospital the other patients have never been the problem. No one's ever tried to start a conversation or say anything at all to me - I assumed all wards were like that! Though whenever I've stayed on a ward, everyone else was really old and I was the only young one there. They all looked at me like I was somehow evil for being young. I just closed the curtains around my bed the whole time.

The worst things are the beeping of the machines: makes it impossible to sleep, and trying to get the attention of the nurses and doctors, who also try to ignore me as much as possible just because they see I'm not assertive or loud and take advantage of that. I often end up being left there alone so long without being checked, even if they say my condition could be urgent.

[HardRockGlamour]

I was only in there 24 hours and I was only on my own for about two of them, lunch time my mum went off to do some shopping so I tried reading and playing a game. Thing is though, when I'm in hospital I'm on alert with high anxiety so I can't really focus on books or games or music, even though I had a bag of stuff to occupy me. I just sat up and rocked back and forth, and watched my surroundings. In the second ward I was with three women in their sixties and seventies, one said 'Debbie? Hello! I must have been asleep when you came in!' which startled me but was very nice. Another lady walked by as I was staring into space and snapped me out of it by saying hello. The last woman kept muttering and calling out for a nurse. There is always one in my experience!

Oh actually, in the first ward this old lady kept saying morbid, depressing things like 'Oh God, please make it stop' and the woman next to her got very rude when her husband came in, laughing and saying 'oh there goes granny grot again. I'm the only one that's going to make it out today.' I couldn't believe how rude she was, taking the piss so loudly, completely unashamed.

[HardRockGlamour]

Originally Posted by KarateGirl

The worst things are the beeping of the machines

Oh God, don't get me f-ing started on those

[Mr Ploppy]

I could stand a dozen machines than one other patient. Sometimes it's been me hooked up to them so I can hardly complain.
It's this stupid ward system, if only I could go in a private hospital, own room, tv, privicy, what bliss.

I suppose a phycologist would say i'm making too much of it, but their nosiness & hovering is doing my head in.

[Mr Ploppy]

Originally Posted by maybellinesmom

What do you do iin hospital?

Get out as quick as you can!!!

Not always easy

[Caribou]

Originally Posted by Mr Ploppy

For those who have had to stay in hospital for a while, how did you manage interacting with other patients ?

I pretended to be asleep or read books. Didn't manage to escape all social interaction during my stay as there was a lot of nosey sods on my ward.

[Lord Lucan]

I slept most of the time.

[Mr Ploppy]

Yay, one nosey git is gone. Without him the other one seems to have ran out of steam, great sucess SO FAR

[Mr Ploppy]

Did you have family to bring you stuff ? Shouldn't be any problem with headphones, didn't you use them ?

[Azi]

I slept (or pretended to sleep) most of the time. Other than that I read books/magazines and generally tried to avoid all interaction. It was easier after I gave birth as I had a cute baby to prod, but being in for menigitis was miserable, it was a mixed ward and I was groggy and anxious.

[Mr Ploppy]

mixed wards are weird, I think they've largely done away with them.

Originally Posted by mark101

Last year my grandad was rushed into hospital and the next morning my mother called and told me to get up the hospital because it didn't look good.
I gets up there and theres about half a dozen family members up there,we get ushered into a room and are told that he died of a blood clot an hour before we arrived.
So then they say we can go see him,i'm thinking there gonna have moved him into a little room or something and we can say our goobyes.Wrong!
I couldn't believe it,there's us all sobbing away while the other poor buggers who all happened to be elderly had to listen to it all.
Not to mention our lack of privacy but i guess every room in the hospitals is spoken for.

Well that little story has cheered you up no end,i imagine

Sorry to hear that but not surprised

[Mr Ploppy]

This NHS wi-fi is terrible, keeps cutting out. Again im not surprised.

perv over the nice nurses

[Vastaux]

Originally Posted by Bobazaw

perv over the nice nurses

That sounds like a plan!!

last time i went to an nhs walk in centre the nurse who i saw was so nice i was contemplating not taking the medication they gave me just so i could go back and see her again!

[blue_the_puppy]

yeesh. when i was in the hospital there was no music allowed, or computers, or pretty much anything from the outside. there were tvs in the ward. basically it was just therapy all day with some free time for reading the (few) books they had in the library or sleeping. it wasn't bad though, i actually had a rather pleasant time. even the food was good.

[Cleo]

No one has tried to engage me in conversation. On the second occasion I was in a day ward used for ENT patients. They asked me if I minded and I said no but it was thoroughly unpleasant being in this vast ward all night and frankly I could have done with some company. (I have to stay overnight as I am still categorised as asthmatic.) Mr Ploppy sounds very self-sufficient. I always feel particularly vulnerable in hospital and enjoy any mindless 'small talk'. We all like to get out but when, as law dictates, they paint the worst scenario of what can happen, it is worrying if you live alone. Normally, living alone doesn't bother me.



Theo

[enilorac]

read, and sleep. thankfully only been in once as an adult and the people on the ward were completely out of it so win and smiles all roundlol

[Between The Bars]

[Aᴄᴇ]

luckily the longest ive ever had to be in hospital was for like a day, when i got a cist removed from my eye, still i got comments like "look at him sittin ther all quiet" meh

[empathy]

I have spent most of my life in hospital. I'm not even going to lie but hospital became my second home, the nurses became my family and the patients my friends. Sometimes I preferred to be in hospital than at home.

I'm not sure what sort of ward we are talking about here but I have no experience with mental health wards. I was always in a children's ward then in a normal adult ward throughout my life just so they would try and keep me alive.

I would be prepared with magazines, dvds, books, paper and pens and all sorts. I always made sure I brought my phone charger (but back then the phone internet wasn't good). I kept myself to myself sometimes just so I could 'get better'. Most of the times I spent some of my stay in a coma and I always kept myself to myself after. Some patients like the comfort of other while others don't.

Hospital setting are indeed alien to most people and boredom can sometimes get the better of us. Lol in the children's ward we use to throw mini performances and out attitude was 'if we get hurt then oh well.... We are in the right place' lol! We were young. Haha