This is the second part of the story of my hospital visit. The first thing I had to learn about being in hospital is that nothing happens to a timetable. The nurses come around every few hours (whenever they are free) to take vitals and dispense pain meds. The doctors come around at some time, usually in the morning or evening and usually in flocks to ask a couple of questions and dispense directions. Meals arrive at times roughly correlating with breakfast, lunch and dinner but varying up to an hour or more each day. The phlebotomist arrives sometime in the morning. They’ll come and take you to surgery sometime in the morning. You’ll be discharged sometime tomorrow. There’s no point asking for specific times for anything – the hospital just doesn’t work like that.

I’m pretty convinced that health has got to be one of the foundations of a good life. Nothing is good when I’m sick, I just want to crawl into bed and die. The only positive I can take from it is that it reminds me to appreciate it when I am healthy. I have a tendency to take not-being-sick for granted, when I think it is something I should be grateful for.