Sunday, April 20, 2008

Hospital Life


Have you ever been in a hospital? I mean like really IN the hospital. Lost for hours at a time? Wandering through every hallway? Eating in every Au Bon Pain?

Between Hubby's back surgery and Mummy's appendix cancer I have been lost in quite a few of the best hospitals in New England.

My path into the hospital usually looks something like this;

Mapquest directions and pray that the Big Dig hasn't rerouted the street.
Eventually find the parking garage.
Squeeze in a spot that would be too tight for your average Yugo.
Enter the building and ask directions.
Travel down snaking hallways to find the Red Building.
Wave at the Au Bon Pain.
Take the Red Building elevators to the mezzanine level.
Ask for directions again.
Walk down another maze of hallways to find the Tower elevators.
Take the Tower elevator to the eleventh level.
Find the 11B tower.
Finally, I am free to look for the room number which is in a pattern that I cannot understand.

I could write for hours about my experiences navigating through hospitals....

There was the time during my husband's surgery when I read a poster that urged everyone to use the stairs. Better for your health it said. How come when I used the stairs I popped out in a recovery room?

Or how about the time when my mummy had a surgery and I couldn't find a place to pay for my parking. The security guard sent me to the valet stand. The valet sent me to the wrong building. Forty-five minutes later I was able to find the hospital parking garage office. Turns out I parked in the garage next door to the hospital.

I like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent person, but is there anyone out there who can actually navigate through a hospital? What happens when you add on feeling sick and tired like many a hospital patient.

Here's to walking around the block one more time and eating all of my green beans. I'm done with hospitals.

3 comments:

dolphyngyrl said...

SweetPea and I have done our share of hospital stints... Visiting her grandma, her grandpa (other side), her cousin. Our hospitals don't seem as bad, as far as parking goes. But there's always the issue of "ok, I found a space! Now. how far am I from where I need to be?" But one hospital downtown is just nuts once you get inside. You can't get to certain areas from certain other areas (i.e., the direct route), so you get directions that go like "take the elevator to this floor, go down the hall to this wing, and then take the elevator up to this floor".

*hugs*

How's mummy doing?

Anonymous said...

Gosh, do I feel for you! When my mother-in-law was sick with cancer, we were in and out of hospitals almost every day for three years! Several hospitals. They are all a huge rat maze, and it was strange how eventually we'd learn our way around all the back staircases, etc. There was never, ever a nice direct, well-marked route to our destination. Ever. Finally figuring it out was like entry into an exclusive club for frequent hospital visitors

Akkire said...

i feel terrible that Boston hospitals and navigation are what you had to deal with in the way of such things. our streets are so crazy and cross eyed EVERYONE gets lost, even people who live here.