Corridors of unknown

This started as a comment on Kerry's blog. This blog rips me and leaves me raw and hurting, but I can't quit reading it. I realized I had more to say than a brief comment so I brought the whole thing here.

This is the post that I'm responding to. Even as I write these words, I am trying to ignore that my friend is in an ICU fighting for his life. And these comments are not about him or his situation. Nor are they about Kerry or her husband. She just got me thinking.














It's institutionalization. The reason the Dr. doesn't want him there is that you become used to it. Why is it that so many patients never leave? Hospitals sap will. They are places of pain and misery. Even childrens' wards are dismal. (Think of the words associated with hospital. Wards, ICU (Intensive Care Unite), Code.) These are not kind image provoking words. Hospitals are sterile eveironments not only in the terms of germs, but in terms of what happens there. Rarely will you ever hear a loud noise or laughter in a hospital. It's worse than a library. Everything is stifled there. Including humanity. We learn at a young age that people die in hospitals. Sure, a majority of patients seen in a year probably go home in better condition (or at least recovering) than they were in when they arrived. I'm startled that with all the medical advances they've made over the last 40-50 years that they haven't found a way to make a hospital more warm and inviting. Hospitable even. How's that for funny. Hospitable. Isn't that what a hospital should be?

Perhaps I'm colored by my own experiences of spending time in hospital waiting rooms with my brother as our mother, aunts and uncles and even older cousins argued about the care my grandmother was getting in the ICU. Heart attack you know. Days on end. Nothing to do. Hard nasty benches. Specified hours you can visit. Is this prison? What if the person I'm visiting is a night person? No visiting hours then is there? So sorry.

I was admitted to a hospital (A really well known one.) about 6-7 years ago. I had a cluster migraine. Imagine 30 days of pain and sensitivity to everything around you. Only relenting for a few hours every few days. By the time I'd been admitted, I'd tried every single pain medication you can name that you can get in a pill at a pharmacy. I'd also tried every migraine pill made too. Most made my heart hammer in my chest so bad that I couldn't imagine that it wasn't going to just rip itself free of my chest and go to a boxing match all on it's own. It would have been a contender.

So no-one knew what was wrong with me. They wouldn't share their theories or even the reasons for the tests they were doing. What they were ruling out. Finally, I had two neurologists going over me and and talking about more tests. "I'm not moving until you tell me what it is that you are afraid I have and what the tests are for."

"We think you have MS." I've never been more terrified in my entire life. No, that is that thing that Jerry Lewis stays up all night for. Not happening. This is not happening to me. I had no one to call. No one to tell. No one to give me comfort. After another test and prescriptions for a bunch of intravenous drugs, I was admitted for observation. To my knowledge, I didn't see either of those doctors again. The MRI they scheduled to see if I had a tumor never happened. After two days of lying in a hospital bed with that half rag wrap as my only clothing I was discharged. Wearing the same clothes I'd had on three days before when I came to the hospital.

While I was there, I saw two sets of nurses and perhaps an intern doing rounds. Everyone was businesslike about their jobs. There was very little friendliness and the room itself couldn't have been less stimulating. Now, you might be thinking, with a migraine, what do you want stimulation for? I didn't. I'm just trying to illustrate my put about the sapping of wills that happens in hospitals and why. I think it's time someone considered the effect the place of treatment has on a patient as well as the treatment itself. It's well known that laughter is good medicine. Why is it then that hospitals don't have closed circuit comedy channels for patients to watch? Hmmm... the laughter and good will might spread like an infection. I'll tip my glass to that.