Why do they keep hospitals so cold?
You know what the prep nurse told us all in pre-op? That the operating room temp is kept at 52 degrees. (I'm talking Fahrenheit here.) It's a state law, she said. ??!!?? My daughter questioned her on that statement, and she repeated it.
Well, it wasn't that much warmer ANYwhere in the hospital. Even though I had brought a wool wrap and was wearing wool socks inside my fur-lined moccasins, I was not warm enough. (I hardly ever am, but this really went beyond the pale!)
But then, to top it all off, I spent most of the night Wednesday in here at the computer playing bridge. (I wanted to be up and at 'em when my son-in-law arrived to pick me up.) Every time I lay down to try and get some sleep, my mind would insistently remind me after about an hour or so that I had no alarm set (in the car), so I would get up and play some more bridge online for a while.
The rest of that day - Thursday - was spent trying to take naps whenever I felt tired (which was most of the time), but I think I must still have been in too much of a state of continued anxiety - even though it appeared that all was going along very well, for my body to relax that much.
Yesterday, now, was a completely different story. I spent most of the day sniveling, blowing my nose and frequently napping. It had finally caught up with me! Not only that, but I could hardly walk.
Even though the hospital was quite small (by today's standards), the amount of walking it took to get from where I was to anywhere else was significant, particularly for one who - basically - does little more than sit around on her behind all day.
Much better today. Got a really good night's sleep. Thank you, Lord. No big aches anywhere and constant sniveling has almost completely disappeared. I'll keep a close watch on it today, but I think I'm over the hump.
Did you know that there are a few people running around out there with surgical masks on? For the H1N1 virus, doncha know. I read about it a lot on other blogs, particularly the eastern Ontario ones, but I'm really not anticipating much (if any) of an outbreak here.
All for now. Have a couple of other posts I'd like to do today. Let's see how awake I am after the next one!
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6 comments:
The swine flu has hit with a vengeance here. We have only 4 high schools in town, but half of the kids are home sick each day in each of the schools. One boy from a different high school than my girls attend seminary at has died from the flu. Only one school (a junior high very near our neighborhood) has shut down so far. My niece has the swine flu, too, though she lives 45 minutes from us. Several people in our neighborhood, church, and friends of my girls have or have had it, too. I can't get into too much of a panic about it all, though...maybe I am the weird one of the bunch, (NO COMMENTS on that one Goldenrod! lol) but I do know there are no treatments for it. Everyone here who has it has been told to treat it just like the regular flu...there is nothing more anyone can do besides up their rest and fluid intake.
OK, now that I'm off that rant, lol, I hope you get feeling better. Stock up on those fancy tissues and keep your sniffles just the sniffles! Cuz if you end up with the swine flu, I WILL worry! :)
Forgot to mention, no one under the age of 18 is allowed in any of the hospitals in our area any more - until the ban is lifted - unless s/he is a patient. A district health decision...
hello goldenrod.
hospitals are the very best place to go to get sick.
i read somewhere a comment by a person who asked if you didn't watch tv, listen to the radio, or read newspapers if you could still catch h1n1. what's interesting about the whole "scare" is that in canada over 4,000 people die every year from flu related illness!!! hmmmmm! i'm surprised there was no hysteria over that! i hope that the various members of your family who are ill or requiring medical intervention all return to the happy healthy state they started with and deserve. have a peaceful day. steven
That sounds almost of epidemic proportions, Tammy. My goodness! There were many schools closed around here last year to try and prevent the flu's spread. It doesn't seem to be anywhere near as bad this year, but maybe I'm just not paying close enough attention to the local news. (?)
Hopefully, Steven, my daughter will not return to her previous state, which included not being able to walk or sit. She underwent spinal surgery earlier this week to remove ruptured material from her lowest disc that was pressing up against a major nerve and causing great distress.
Good to hear from you both, as always. A PS, Tammy ... ... one more good thing to be said in favor of home-schooling, right?
We must be way behind here in good ole' Idaho, lol. Honestly, I haven't heard of anyone in my state getting swine flu til maybe 2-3 months ago tops. Idaho Falls, Pocatello, and Blackfoot have been really hit, though, just in the past 6 weeks. I saw on Facebook that 3 more of my nieces/nephews that live 20 minutes away have it. Tonya says her daughter is feeling much better, and now it's Nicole's kids that have it. But like Steven said, really it doesn't seem to be doing any more damage (so to speak) than regular flu...
And yes, homeschooling is nice just to keep the kids out of that mix...except that they have all of their outside activities which go all day long every day, lol. So they are actually in the public or in group situations as much as if they were actually in school anyway.
Did you see that story on the front page of yahoo this morning? Something about a cat catching swine flu from its owner??? I didn't read the story, just caught the headline. It grabbed my attention because Katie asked me if cats could catch it from their owners just the other day. I told her OF COURSE NOT. But then, what do I know? I guess not much, lol. I should go read that article now.
Hi there Goldenrod -- glad to hear you're going to take a miss on actually getting sick!! It'd almost be like having a summer cold about now, wouldn't it? The weather's been so very warm...
The good news is your analysis is probably correct -- a combination of ridiculous cold in the hospital, w/ lack of sleep (and probably some stress for good measure). Unlikely to have caught anything from this particular hospital, since they're a surgical center, and only do (as far as I know) spine and ortho stuff.
:-)
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