While lying in the hospital bed, day and night for over week during my recent sojourn at the local Regional Medical Center, I remember concluding that I was ensnared by the bed, especially during the long nighttime hours. Trying to locate the damn buttons to lower-raise-move the position of the bed bread nothing but frustration and resignation. As you lie there, you are aware that the staff will be back to check vital signs, take blood, give you meds or just check on you so the hours of loneliness and entrapment are broken up from time-to-time. I recall one night. I was all scrunched up in the bed and was flaying about from side-to-side, trying to position myself so I could reach at least one side of the bed that contained the control panels. Being short of stature—just being a “little fella” - my arms are limited in how far they will extend from my body and this proved to be just one more containment component of the nightly experience. The remote that included the call button for the nurse had fallen and I had no idea were the hell it was, nor was I able to position myself to find where it was located. Throughout, you feel so freaking helpless. An additional challenge was that I had a catheter inserted in the area between my neck and upper chest and when I moved the wrong way a sharp pain followed, so I was just a tad bit apprehensive about moving about too much. The catheter was inserted so that I could be put on dialysis when it was needed.
The beds that are used to ensnare our bodies are engineering masterpieces that are not made for the human body to lie in with any degree of comfort. As I have mentioned, I am not a large person, yet I was continuing to slide down in the bed and if I pulled my self back up to the top of the bed once, I am sure I did so 100 times during the days I was confined. Guess one could argue that the ongoing attempts to locate some degree of comfort provided a diversion from watching the second had slowly move around the clock that is position on the wall directly in front of the bed. During one of my experiences with the bed, the nurse informed us that the beds had only been in use for a couple of weeks—whew, weren’t we lucky. A feature of these modern-day wonders is that they have a switch that can be set and if you leave the prone position it sets off a piercing alarm. One night I decided to sit on the side of the bed and the alarm goes off and now I’m wondering what the hell did I do. Oh well, the night worn on!
Reflecting on the “bed” and its many “attributes”, I think of trying to eat while lying in bed. If you push one button it raises you head, but also raises your feet so you can never get into an upright position. I dropped jello down my fashionable gown, a piece of ham somewhere in the bed and took a shower when I tried to drink water from a large plastic cup that should not have been tipped. Much easier to just ask for some crackers.
Oh, while in this confined state, the ability to find some position that might be conducive to sleep does not exist. Over the time that I was an occupant of room 427, I tallied nary but a few minutes of sleep on any given night or day. Constantly changing positions did not offer any respite to the sleeplessness and you become resigned to watching the ever so slowly moving minute and hour hands of the clock on the wall.
Indeed, it can always be worse, but thankfully I am back home in a normal bed and I do not have to try to eat while lying down. While having the time to myself in the hospital, I was able to think of the many family and friends who expressed their concern and support, and I will always be grateful and thankful for each and everyone of these amazing caring people.