After eight days away, I slept in my own bed for the first time again last night. I didn’t sleep too well. I woke up a few times and struggled to find a position that was comfortable, but it was so much better than in the hospital. No tubing connected to my chest, no nurses coming in at ungodly hours to connect an antibiotic infusion or take vitals before anyone is ready to get up. I’m happy to be back home.
I left the hospital shortly before lunchtime yesterday. Lunch had in fact already been served, but I sent it back because I preferred to eat at home. I didn’t feel too great when I left. I was weak, far from energetic and wondering how the journey home would turn out. I hadn’t moved too much over the last eight days.
A bus brought me to the center of town where I filled two prescriptions that I’d need later that day. One was for an oral antibiotic that would extend by another three days the therapy I had started in the hospital. The pills are as large as candies but go down without problems, as I learned in the morning when I took the first one in the hospital. The second drug acts against nausea.
I’ve never suffered from nausea during my fight against cancer. The nurse who gave me the pills couldn’t quite explain why I needed to take them. I took the pill a few times, out of trust in the medical profession but then started to discard them like a rebellious inmate of a mental institution. On the second to last day of my stay, the doctor explained that the drug acts by stimulating gut activity. This might give my stretched belly some relief. Now I’m back to taking it again.
In the puffy jacket I had put on when I got the chills last Thursday and had worn to the hospital, I was now walking home, slowly but steadily. With the temperature in double digits and the sun shining, the jacket was quite a few puffs too warm. Walking didn’t seem the right thing to do, but I had to press on. Every step I took was an effort. And yet, I could feel my energy returning, bit by bit, with every step. Being outside felt good, breathing fresh air, having the sun pull sweat from my skin. I arrived home exhausted but revitalized, a different person than had left the hospital.
This is when I realized the main predicament of hospitals. They’re great places to help patients get better. The nurses and carers are more than just professionally alert to the patients. Most work passionately. The doctors do their best, never mind the hour. I got the treatments I needed, quickly and expertly. The nurses continued the care and made sure to meet all my needs. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”, was the question I heard more often. This is why most people leave the hospital in a better shape than they enter it in.
At the same time, staying in the hospital is bad for patients. Germs, especially of the antibiotic-resistant kind, make infections a serious danger. Patients lie in their beds, restricted to their rooms, for days. The air is stale, the sun distant. Patients don’t move much. They slowly enter a resting state of lethargy and tiredness. Muscles shrivel. Stay in hospital beyond what’s medically necessary, and you’re bound to get worse.
I tried to keep myself alive while in hospital. I walked up and down the long corridor down the building. One lap added up to slightly more than 400 steps. Making this add up to a respectable number takes more stamina than I had. Even so, my sluggish shuffling, IV pole in hand, wouldn’t exactly have amounted to exercise. The last two days, when the procedures were done and I had finished my book, I spent my time counting the hours and dreading the arrival of the next meal. With soup, salad, main course and dessert, the food was quite good, but my stomach couldn’t take it, and it seemed as if my digestion had also entered a resting state.
Yesterday morning, when the doctor gave me the option of leaving or staying for another day to exclude anything bad related to the slightly elevated temperature I had had the night before, there was one obviously correct choice. Today, I can already feel the difference. I might not be much more active than before, but my body has woken up. Eating is still a bit of a struggle, but much less so, and I don’t dread it anymore. I don’t sleep during the day. I climb stairs. I go outside. I’ve risen from the hospital.
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