When I spent the night in the hospital after my first surgery, I was dismayed to discover that the TV set in my room had no capacity for earphones. I was in and out of consciousness, and I had intended that the TV would keep me company in the late hours, but since my roommate could hear it I was obliged to turn it off early. Anticipating some such inconvenience, I had inquired about a private room, but instead of being double the cost of a semi-private, it was something like $10K more than a semiprivate room–completely out of the question. This time, accordingly, I brought my computer to the hospital, where I could stream movies through the wireless. So while I’m not exactly liveblogging my surgery, I’m able to record impressions right here from my hospital bed that are as fresh as my incision.
It was all such a cakewalk this time, compared to the last. I was up sooner and felt better more quickly and hurt less and worried less. I made a big fuss about putting the IV in a different spot, and the new location was much better. I suppose I knew what to expect, which helped. The surgery was also less extensive this time, so I wasn’t under for as long. And last time I refused pain medication because I wasn’t really in pain, but this time I accepted it because I was nauseated from walking around and thought it would be good to get some sleep. I didn’t sleep, because my roommate had her TV on full blast, but the hours after surgery were just so much more comfortable this time than last.
I ate some ice cream, tolerated a visit from the children and then tried to read, but the TV was quite annoying. Around 8:00 I watched a movie on my computer with headphones in an effort to drown out the sound. Around 9:00 the nurse came and told my roommate that whatever issue they had been following up with her was resolved to their satisfaction and she could be discharged if she wanted, and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then she called her people and apparently decided to stay after all (unwilling to lose a night with the hospital’s superior cable package?). At 10:00 my movie wrapped up and I asked her to turn down the volume. At midnight I went to the lounge and tried to sleep there. At 1:00 a.m. I asked the nurse to ask her PLEASE to turn off the TV, it was the middle of the night for Christ’s sake, this was a hospital not a casino, and wasn’t I entitled to FIVE MINUTES of peace and quiet after major surgery? (That’s what I said in my head; to the nurse, it was more like, “Would you mind terribly asking my roommate to turn off the TV?”)
The nurse approached my roommate, but there was a language barrier, and the woman became agitated, so the nurse went to fetch an interpreter. My roommate called her mother and carried on a shouting, complaining conversation for ten minutes or so. The interpreter came and also talked to the mother on the phone and left, and then about ten minutes later another person came in, tapped my shoulder, and said, “We’re moving you to another room.”
Seriously? I’m moving just so she can exercise her God-given right to watch television all night long? But I was happy enough to do it. Two nurses helped me collect my gear and within minutes I was ensconced in my own room, sans roommate.
After about ten minutes I realized I had left my purse in the nightstand, so I crept back to my old room to get it. The TV was off.