Just another friggin' day

visiting the hospital...

With an unpleasant surprise when I got there.....

To find an empty bottle of Coca-Cola Lite on his side table. Uh-huh...

To help the unititiated understand, that shit has more sugar in it than anything you can think of, and it may read 'Lite', but the only thing worse is the regular stuff... and one liter of the latter has the equivalent of 70 sugar cubes in it, and Peter has diabetes.

So you can imagine my ire, and I had a 'suspect' in mind... the son of a freshly arrived patient across the way, and the guy was out in the corridor. (More on that in a minute...) So I told Peter I was going out for a cigarette on the balcony, and confronted the guy. 'Excuse me, but did you get that man in bed number four a Coke??? Because he has diabetes...' He was clearly taken aback, and surprised, and said no, he hadn't. So I excused myself for bothering him. He has some serious worries, believe me.

He said I should talk to someone at the nurses' station, which I was planning to do anyway. So I marched over there, told them what I had seen, and one of them said, 'We know, that is why we can't get his blood sugar down.' And I said, 'Well, he isn't getting that shit from me, the worst thing I bring him is a mild corfee with extra milk. Keep an eye on him, because I can't figure out WHO he is bribing. It isn't as if he can get up and run around on his own...'

Upon which they sort of laughed. Swell.

Yeah, just call me 'bull-dog'.

Now, about the new guy in the room. He is SO badly off, it hurts to look at. Just out of intensive care station after being there three months, and I cannot figure why he still isn't IN intensive care. His son seems to be mid-thirty, and is ALWAYS by his side. Oh, he'll go out, and make a call on his cell, or just get some temporary relief, but I already feel sorry for the guy. His Dad is so frail... His son sits there and reads the newspaper to him.

As much as I HATE hospitals... they do have a tendency to put things into relative perspective. I know that sounds odd. Peter can converse half-way cogently still. And then I see those other two, and think, 'well.... it could be worse....'

And I feel sorry for his son. And that guy is listening to what we talk about, and must think we are fully nuts. 'I ratted you out at the nurses' station'. 'You did that before, and it didn't help.' 'Well grow up, for Chrissakes!'

They had a new arrival in Bed Number Two. Long questionnaire from the nurse, very professional, and Peter muttering imprecations the whole time. She told the guy he has to stay in bed. And off the guy went, meandering ten minutes later. And Peter says, 'Look at that, they dress people like Kasperls (Punch of Punch and Judy, read: clown.) And I said, 'Well what did you expect hey, Armani?' And he comes back with 'No, Karl Lagerfeld.' Whereupon I said, 'You are SUCH a brand-name whore.' The son across the way nearly choked. It's our Abbot and Costello act.

I was still upset, so I went to the balcony... and missed the newbie getting caught in the act of wandering around the corridors, and getting a super-vile dressing-down by the nurses who slapped him into bed, and hung up a sign above him: 'ABSOLUTE BED REST'.

Oh, how that brought back memories! (They have one for relative bed rest as well, there are stages.) I had ABSOLUTE for eight weeks once. And I was fairly good at it, using the bottle to pee... but crapping in a bed pan? I tried it... once. After that it was, 'NO FUCKING WAY..' So I would wait, and as soon as the coast was clear, would race out to the WC, and it was such a reilief...

And I always got caught returning to my prison/bed. Man, they could just freak out, it was amazing. I'm sorry I missed this one, but maybe better so, I probably would have broke out laughing.

Then a nurse came in... with some pills. Anti-biotics. It was crass, he went fully 'Nope, no way, not gonna take them.' And demanded to talk to the head nurse, who was certainly gone for the day. And I said, 'Oh, for chrissakes, it is just a pill, not gallons of IVs!' (He got those after his last heart attack, and getting four liters of that shit a day. They gave him uncontrollable diahhrea, and he is afraid of a repeat performance.)

I was really, really irritated. 'Don't yell.' 'Hey, when I yell, you are going to KNOW it.'

Cracked the son of Bed 1 up...

I said, 'Listen, I am going out on the balcony. Think about it.' 'Are you leaving?'' 'No, am coming back--- and that is a THREAT.'

Son of bed nr. 1 choked on imaginary food....

Tja, somewhat later I left and came home. Not before politicising with my tobacconist, and getting something to eat for this evening... Hardly home, the phone rings. Did I get home ok? Tja, would I be answering???

Ten minutes later... the phone rings. Seemingly, there was a problem with the nurse, and his taking an antibiotic pill. 'Should I take it?'

(through clenched teeth....) Peter, it isn't liter sized IV's that will give you diahrea. It is small. They won't make you get the shits, so just TAKE it... OK?? Just take it.'

'Ok...'

Sigh...

Nice to know I have some sort of influence...

Just another day at the hospital. Tja...

I did see a fun thing on the way home in the streetcar.... A ca. ten year old kid with a unicycle. That was 'odd'.... In a brown hoodie, no less. Man, how 'cool' can you get, hey... But he topped it... yup, the kid did. Just before his stop, he got ON the unicycle at the streetcar door, and when they opened, he jumped out on it, and cycled up the street. Austrians are sorta kinda crazy. But it made me smile, when smiling wasn't on my agenda. Cool...