Four walls: You can see by my expression, I am pleased to be there in the hospital! (No, seriously! I joke here because the staff at Regional West all are very competent, supportive, helpful and – best of all – survived my kitty stories and quirky sense of humor – humour for my friends in the rest of the former British Empire and the UK….)
I always read these information packets. Regional West Medical Center’s would rate a high final mark were I making an ISO 1000 quality management system audit, one of those things I did when I worked in quality. It was a well-produced improvement over the wad of paper they handed out in 2016! (And that was a well-written and organized effort.) Yes, I learned a lot about the hospital’s services and the people providing the services from this read! This old quality guy was very impressed!
One of the handouts especially impressed me. You know all the questions they ask when you are admitted? It was a simple card with a place to write things like medications currently taken, emergency contact’s information, and more. Fold it and carry it with you in your purse or wallet. Don’t reveal yourself to be a disorganized bumpkin ever again when put to the third degree for your medical history back to 1900! Bravo Regional West! Besides, you know you screw up on your medicine at least daily, a flaw of character exposed when you can’t recall which ones you “take”! Hmm. Now, where is that dang wallet?!
I missed my kitty boys, but I used my business cards to attract other cat buddies out of the woodworks! I’m glad I had various designs of kitty business cards printed over the years. They’ve helped me make contact with like-minded feline aficionados.
Yet, do you really count the residential vampires in all hospitals, the phlebotomists, among your favorite people ever? You do when they have two really pretty kitties and they pull out their smartphones to show their kitty photos to you!
One even admitted being a Japanese cat video addict, something yours truly barely overcame after years of endless hours watching Japanese cats hop into boxes and wear silly hats making them into prehistoric animals. RAWWWWR!
Yeah, real men “wuv” their little “kittikins”, too. They just make sure to do the secret handshake with other “real guys” to prove they can be trusted with this dangerous knowledge.
Time to process out… it takes forever. I sit there in my hospital gown till a lady comes in and says she’s working on my discharge papers. I dress in smelly clothes I wore during admission on Tuesday. UGH! That was all I had. I should have had my friend Judy bring some fresh ones from Alliance. I never, never wear underwear that many days unless being held hostage by the Taliban!
Add this to your preparation list of emergency “toolkit for surviving unexpected hospital incarcerations”: One 10-pack of all black undershorts in case you have to stay longer and have to reverse them to “freshen” in another emergency situtation requiring reusing lightly (one hopes) soiled one-day shorts. You still can burn them when you get home, but check the local burn laws first!
Those still rate an “ugh!” but you won’t have to spend two hours when you get home soaking them off in the bath tub.
But I never got bored!
I still have some tests to take and there may be more time in hospital in my near future. Hard to say. Why was I hospitalized? A lung infection and a possibility of an infected dialysis fistula. I am on a course of post-hospitalization antibiotics for five days. Little by little, this blog will return to more important matters, CATS, specifically those two Adorables, Andy and Dougy the Persian kitty boys!
What the heck! I could have waited a day to post this event from midnight today, but I know you are waiting with baited breath to learn how the kitty lounger wars progress. I hope this peaceful moment is more than detente. Kitties don’t sign treaties, of course, just suddenly stop fighting over little kitty-defined “Hamburger Hills” and other objectives, then let their humans clean up the kitty parts!
Gad, I’m happy to be back with my kitty boys! Thank you all for your prayers and concerns. I am very touched, especially when I know the primary reason anyone stops here is to catch up on what The Adorables do.
Besides, I know my buddy GP takes time off from his heavily researched and always informative blog on the Pacific war to see what his favorite, Dougy, is up to. This is how I give back to one of the top serious bloggists on the Internet.
To those how come by for a wee bit of daily humor/humour, I can guarantee a pretty wee amount, OK, but if the kitty boys make you smile, well, I am blessed, too, to know I helped brighten your day.
To those who blog about their pets, feline, canine, whatever-nine; or travel; or recipes like Dolly and leggypeggy (Australian now – even spells it “humour” and “colour”, but is a fellow Cornhusker from Nebraska by birth- GO BIG RED! HURRAH!); or life in France literature and writing; and more, I love your blogs, but even more am touched by your concerns and prayers when mine took this Krankenhausruhe.
Thank you all! Thank you!
So sorry to hear you had to go to the hospital but glad to hear you’re back home! We are still catching up on everything as we all were away for a while.
Yes, it was terrifying (and a bloody mess), but I got excellent care.
Oh Mr. Doug, I’m sorry you had to go to the hospital and had vampires lurking around on top of that! Yikes! But I’m so-o glad that you are home again with Andy and Dougy. You must’ve missed them terribly. I bet they thought you had been abducted by aliens. Hugs and luvs and healing purs.
They were kindly vampires, taking mostly small amoiunts of blood with less pain than a moskito makes. In fact, two of these vampires could teach moskitos how to cause less pain! I was impressed!
Yes, I really do miss them. They spend a big part of our days interacting with me in happy ways. I miss their soft meows (they are very soft-spoken kitties…), the feel of their fur, evcen goiung to the bathroom without two cats hanging around to make sure I am safe and don’t flush myself down the toilet by accident – that is why they do it, isn’t it?!
Oh dear Doug, I am so glad to hear that you came back home and of course to your lovely cats…I wish you to get well soon, you made me afraid when I see the photographs, Please take care, I can imagine your cats how being happy now. Thank you, Blessing and Happiness to you all, love, nia
Thank you, nia! It was the shortest hospital stay I’ve ever had. They initially trhought I had a blood infection, a serious matter, but that turned out not to be the case.
I am so glad to hear this dear Doug, take a rest now with your cats. Good Evening, Love, nia
Thank you! I will do just that!
the kitty boys are thinking your the new Doug 2.0!
LOL! I wish I cojuld come back updated and new!
So pleased to know you are back home, with the lovely Kitties, peaceful – or not.
Do take care, dear weggieboy-
amitiés 🙂
I am glad, too!
Hope all is better…I know the kitty boys were glad to see their human friend….feel better real soon my friend chuq
That they were, and so was I! I am much better, thanks to a antibiotic infusion the first day.
😉
Glad Dougy and Andy are getting along. I am sure they are thrilled to have their daddy home.
Eventually they were. I think “Auntie” Judy must have been a big hit because they had a “meh!” attitude when I first got home. It wasn’t long before they were vying for my attnetion, though, and all’s back to normal now.
Not only you are better , Doug , but also you find agian your humor and the art of typing on a smartphone 🙂 Encouragement.
In friendship
Michel
And more you are back home with the two brothers ! Hourray!
Yes and I can’t be happier, Michel! I had one dialysis session at the hospital. They wheeled me on my bed down to the dialysis room, and I had my seession on my back. I thought that would be more comfortable than sitting in a chair for four hours, but it actually turned out to be less comfortable, though the bed itself was very comfortable. Makes no sense! Two of the people involved in the dialysis looked familiar and turned out to be two of the people involved in my dialysis in Scottsbluff back in March 2016 when I still had a catheter. That was a fun thing to happen!
I am also lying on a bed for the dialysis , Doug, because i could not endure the arm chair with the back surgery I got in December 2014. But I got cramps in the beds !!
I waw uncomfortable in the bed during dialysis, but the same bed was really comfortable for sleeping. It made no sense. I didn’t get cramps in the bed but I think they were rushing it because I get lots of itching when I am dialized too fast. Strange!
Yesterday’s post I got to do on my good, old laptop! I tried humor on the smartphone, but it was so “clunky” and difficult to use that I quicklhy lost any sense of fun I had before I tried using it. I dislike smartphones for anything but the shortest of comminications!
It’s good to see you back and out of the hospital! I confess I laughed hard at your having to get back into the smelly clothes they brought you in: I had a similar experience when I fell and got a concussion, and ended up in the ICU for a day. My neighbor, bless her heart, gave me a ride home from the hospital, but she forgot to bring the clean underwear and socks I’d requested the night before. I suppose she was more concerned about my kids, who were teenagers when this happened and were somewhat adrift without their mother. Anyway, I’m happy you survived the ordeal (don’t you love the midnight visits from the nurses taking your temperature and blood pressure?) and are home at last. Give the kitty boys a hug for me!
LOL! Yeah, that clean underwear issue became a major obsession by the end! Fortunately, I survived, but the first thing I did on arriving home (after petting the kitty boys, of course, who greeted my indiferently at the door) was to strip and replace those dang undershorts.
The kitty boys didn’t seem concerned I was gone, now back, at first2, but it wasn’t more than a few minutes before they were fighting for my attention. I blame the stinky shorts! LOL!
So happy to see you are back home! I always look forward to your news, kitty stories and also the news of how you are doing. Best wishes always!
Thanks! I appreciate knowing that and, knowing there is that interest, I tried to make my homecoming blog a bit more, um, “me” than usual. Hope you got some laughs reading it!
Good to hear you are back home, and with the kitties, Doug! There is indeed no place like home! 🙂
All the best from the cats and crew here.
Thanks, Lavinia! You said it. Though I had excellent care in the local hospital and the regional one in Scottsbluff, the best place to heal once you are stabilized is home! Besides, I me=issed the kitty boys, of course!
You have an excellent pair of caregivers in Andy and Dougy cats! 🙂
Yes, I do!
I’m so glad your back home, there’s really no place like home! Judy Garland was right. I like your use of real English such as Humour. The US needs to put these letters back into our spelling…
You and Judy get it right! As for “humour” and the correct King’s English orthography, I agree. The Canadians show they are more trustworthy for maintaining these conventions. Yeah!
I love Canada! Lived there briefly years ago, such nice people and clean cities too. 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
Fewer mass shootings…
I must agree. Guns don’t kill, Humans do. Outlaw guns, the crooks will still have them, we’ll be left with knives, baseball bats and so on.
Great news to hear! Loved your comment about the underwear. My brother was in a bad car accident in February. I had to take clothes in for him. He told me exactly where everything was but when I turned up with tidy whities instead of black ones, he was upset (what will the nurses think?) If he doesn’t wear them, I don’t know why they are in his underwear drawer but your suggestion on a dozen black ones is a good idea. BTW he’s 89. You would think he was beyond all this but apparently not.
LOL! Black is not only more elegant than tighty whities, they show unfortunate “soiling” better. And let’s be honest about it, in a hospital you don’t keep as clean as at home, thanks to lots of lines attached to your arms, etc. that have to be taken into consideration when doing stuff after a bowel movement (ick!) or having a shower/bath. I bet the white ones were a gift….
Krankenhausruhe – is not really a word combination in Germany, but it could become one …
It should be! LOL! I didn’t recall hearing anything like that when visiting my landlady, Frau Hauser, in the hospital. Her daughter (fluent in English) was there at the same time, so the conversation was sometimes in English, sometimes in German (Frau Hauser spoke no English), depending on who was talking or to whom. That was a happy accident of timing. Dr. Hauser, the dentist daughter, helped me with German when I couldn’t find a word, and translated what she and I spoke about in English. A successful “Krankenbesuch”~!
Now, “Krankenbesuch” IS a word in German 😁
I remember it from my Conversational German classes!