HewRon wrote:
>
> Invisible hugs, or handshakes, as appropriate, to all my invisible friends.
>
> It's good to be home, but this time I'm tireder and shakier than ever before.
> It will take a few days just to recover from the hospital stay, which, pardon
> me, I will make the subject of this note and perhaps some others.
>
> How can one not arrive home ready to do a Rip Van Winkle when one has been
> unable to get more than a couple of hours of continuous sleep for five days?
> When I think of my original five-week hospital stay, I wonder how I lived
> through it. Yet the truth of the matter is that I felt better upon release
> back then than I do now. But of course now I have a few months of chemo behind
> me, and I guess it's all building up in the blood.
>
> Even so, I think hospitals could do a lot to raise your sense of well being.
> Like treating you like a human being, and not a thing, for one. It is, of
> course, essential for administrators, doctors and nurses alike not to identify
> with patients in general. That I understand. But doesn't it cross their minds
> that a loudspeaker placed six inches away from a patient's head and all day
> ringing with sudden loud announcements -- i.e. that Nurse Edith should give
> her location or report to the desk for a phone call -- have nothing at all to
> do with the patient who is trying to recover from a night of constant (and
> unavoidable) interruptions of sleep? It reduces one to thinghood. Isn't that
> just a bit on the basic side? Couldn't there at least be a volume control (the
> sound level depends upon the announcer -- supermarket level in some cases) or
> a switch so that staff members could switch on when they were in the room and
> off when they left? That is too expensive a device for a hospital with a
> basement full of equipment that could take you to Andromeda and back? These
> hospitals are places that can run up a bill of $20,000 a week. (I speak from
> experience. The insurance company still seems to be musing ... and that was
> July/August.) At my hospital, the loudspeaker announcements began at 7 a.m.
> and ended at 7 p.m., or so it seemed, and the frequency of announcements
> depended on the nurse in control of the apparatus. I noticed that some nurses
> made announcements much more frequently than others.
>
> So there is bellyache No. 1 about heap big important New York hospitals. I
> understand the situation is precisely the same at the heap big New York
> hospital smack next door.
>
> When I mentioned this to one of the doctors he told me I was right and should
> write to the CEO of the hospital. I asked him if other patients complained
> about the interruptions and he said not to his knowledge. Amazing. Have any of
> my fellow travelers shared this experience of mine? I'd love to know, and what
> you think about it.
>
> Have a nice hushed evening.
>
> Yours with heavy eyes
>
> -- Ron
Dear Ron,
I am very concerned, not only because of the experience you have
incurred during this treatment schedule but mostly that the toxic stress
you experienced during this treatment. We support you and agree no one
should have experienced this level of anxiety during ones ability to try
and receive treatment without any undue additional stress let alone add
to the situation by the unnerving situation of something that can be
done easily to help you get over this anxiety.
Yes, there are ways to overcome this darn madness that the hospital has
placed on you and one of them, maybe minimal of course, but should that
every occur again, I would certainly complain to your oncologist. If
he/she is someone who has your interest at heart, then he/she would
co-operate to at least change your room.
The other suggestion is, this experience is a very toxic experience, and
one that needs not to be in your life as it conflict with the physical
effect of what the conventional treatment is trying to do. If our
emotions are such that is stressful while receiving a treatment that is
trying to heal then there is a conflict. My suggestion would be to take
a tape recorder and listen to meditation tapes, audio recording that
reflect and allude to wellness or at least some good Garth Brooks stuff.
I know you can only hear so many tapes, but during the course of the day
when the noise level is worse maybe you can hear these tapes at that
time. They are healing to your psychi as the conventional treatment is
to your body. Just one suggestion. I am very concerned about the
stress you are and were under. This is an area we are very expert
about.
Ron, you should not have to endure that type of anxiety. Isn't there
anyone that supports you, a caregiver that can address this situation
instead of you so that this does not happen again? Stress is something
that needs to be either reduced or eliminated from your life while
trying to heal.. We are also very selfish...we need you to be well not
stressful.
God Bless
Your friends
Marty and Barb
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is an automatically-generated notice. If you'd like to be removed
from the mailing list, please visit the Medicine-On-Line Discussion Forum
at <http://www.meds.com/con_faq.html>, or send an email message to:
majordomo@lists.meds.com
with the subject line blank and the body of the message containing the line:
unsubscribe mol-cancer your-email-address
where the phrase your-email-address is replaced with your actual email
address.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
