Hospitals aren’t terribly cozy. Their fluorescent pallor, slick floors, and uniform beds are designed with efficiency and hygiene in mind, not a good night’s sleep. Add the din of conversations outside the door, intermittent beeping, and subarctic temperatures, and it’s easy to feel a thousand miles from home.
This means patients should indulge and be luxurious in whatever small ways they can manage. You’ll need to get creative here, and pack things that bring you comfort. They’ll make for a more cozy, entertaining, and safe hospital stay, should you have to check in for a period of time to recover.
Below is a list of items to consider tucking in your bag, or sending hovering relatives off to collect:
Your favorite pillow (or two or three)
Good headphones
Soft wool socks
Something that smells like home
Essential oils
A handful of books (not only to last you, but because when you have them out the room feels a little more like a den)
A device with your music
A book on tape (many libraries offer a selection of audiobooks you can download online for free without waiting to check them out)
Your own toiletries
Your own PJs and a good robe
Loose, warm clothing
Ambient lights (like a reading lamp)
Down comforter, blanket, or quilt
Earplugs
A laptop and/or other devices as well as their chargers
First we eat, then we do everything else.
—M. F. K. FISHER
I’m with M. F. K. Fisher on this one: Food is one of the purest delights, and because delight can be in short supply during a hospital stay, I support finding ways to indulge in simple pleasures where you can. After his leg surgery, writer and neurologist Oliver Sacks invited his best friends to his room for toast and a cold split of champagne. You don’t have to go grand (though you can), but it’s a good idea to bring favorite shelf-stable snacks, and if you need refrigeration ask your nursing team if there is room available on the unit for you to store a few things. This is usually easy to accommodate.
Of course, depending on your condition, not everything is fair game. Your provider may tell you which foods to avoid during your healing period; the hospital also has dieticians available for consultations. If you’d like more specific advice on the best foods to eat during recovery, ask your provider or nurse to schedule a visit with one for you.
During a hospital stay, sleep, like nutrition, is compromised at a time it’s most needed. If you’re struggling to get adequate rest, aside from making your quarters as luxe as possible with things from home, strategize with your nurse. They will be your champion in this regard, and often have ways to support you that you might not think of. They can, for instance:
Put a sign on your door that reroutes visitors coming to poke and prod, get you up for physical therapy, or take your dinner order, telling them to come back later.
Play bad cop and send off visitors you might not have the heart or willpower to turn away.
Cluster your care, grouping as much as possible together at one time to reduce interruptions, rather than coming in several times over the night with scheduled medications or to assess vitals.
Advocate on your behalf if you truly need to be moved to a quieter end of the unit. Nursing staff have the most sway in these decisions and can go to bat to make it happen.
Bring a notebook along for hospital stays of all lengths and levels of intensity. Keep it out where it’s easily accessible so you can jot down questions as they arise. Keep track of each day and record major events, including:
Tests
Dressing changes
Visits from physical, occupational, or speech therapists
New diagnoses
Major changes in status or direction of care
New medications
This will help you remember what happened, and when—which can assist you in conversations with the medical team during your stay, and can also be good to have when you’re going over an itemized insurance bill after the fact (see here, “Comb Over Your Bills”). Having your own record is a way to ensure that things are accurate.
Patient Mentality and the Spectrum of Assertiveness
Whether you’re a patient or an advocate, when you enter a modern hospital (and, for that matter, when you step into a medical encounter of any nature), leave any conditioning to be submissive at the door.
You do not get your car serviced and think, I hope I didn’t offend them when I asked why they thought the rotation was necessary, or declined the oil change.
It’s time to assign things their proper weight. This is not an excuse to be a monster, but if there is ever a time to fight the impulse to appease authority figures and avoid making a scene, it’s during your hospital stay, where it’s advisible to put self-respect over respect for the system.
When I was interviewing families while working on this book, the phrase “If I could have . . .” came up consistently. Here and now, decide that you’ll operate based on the assumption that (within reason) you can. If you want everyone in the same room, call a meeting: Tell your provider you need the specialists on your case to convene for ten minutes in your room to ensure all parties are on the same page and talking to one another. If your request is ignored, move up the chain of command (see here). If you’re in the dark about what’s going on with your diagnosis, ask questions until things make sense to you. Don’t worry about how it might come across.
Hospitals will always be chaotic and busy. You will never find a nurse lying around thumbing through Vogue. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a provider who makes you feel like they have all day to chat. The point is, if you wait for just the right moment to assert your needs, it may never come.
Don’t seek conflict, but don’t avoid it. If the thought of being assertive and facing collisions with practitioners and the system makes you fidget—take a moment to remember what’s at stake, and weigh it objectively with the risk of stepping on toes.
Also keep in mind that the medical system is flawed—a fact lost on no one who works in the industry. Today, hospitals and clinics around the country are adopting and promoting cultures of transparency, meaning that clinicians are primed to admit mistakes, accept negative feedback, and address communication breakdowns. Reminding patients about this shift in industry culture somehow reframes the dynamic and grants them permission to challenge things.
Of course, there’s an art to challenging authority in a way that makes the person on the other end more receptive to your position and needs. Start from a place of alignment rather than accusation, and you’re likely to make headway. If this approach doesn’t get you anywhere, your requests can take on more urgency and directness.
Though it’s hard, try to remain as unemotional as possible in these exchanges. Amplifying a situation with tears, shouting, or attitude might be warranted, but it distracts from the issue and delays rectification.
Last, assume goodwill. Assume that your care providers have benevolence and concern for the welfare of others. Compassion and thoughtfulness are given freely. As philosopher Simone Weil would say, they are a matter of grace. Leave room for this grace to flourish, no matter how disappointed or frustrated you feel. When you look for it in the system, you’ll find it.