Can You Really Have a Good Time in the Hospital?

7-10 April 2008

Surgery was on 7 April. No big deal...they take my old crappy knee, saw my leg in half and add a new one made of titanium, plastic and rubber. If you aren't of the queasy type, Google "total knee replacement" and take a look at the pictures. They're pretty cool if you're into that kind of thing. After a little stint in recovery I got moved to a room where I would stay for three or four days.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm a bit of a hotel snob. I travel for a living, flying three weeks a month every month, so I'm all about staying in a nice hotel. Needless to say, in case you're wondering, there's no good way to do a hotel to hospital comparison. No reviews with stars to do a comparison, no Mobil guide for consultation. You kind of have to take what you get.

I get moved into a room where there was already an older woman in the other bed. She was such a sweet little thing. Every time someone came to visit her she made sure they came to say hello to "the 20 year old little girl in the next bed who just had her knee replaced." My mom told me that she had a sign over her bed that she was visually and hearing impaired, but I didn't care. She said I was 20...and since I'm almost 40, she became my favorite roommate very quickly.

The hospital I was at is a teaching hospital, and the staff was just great. There were these great student nurses there that I got to know pretty well. Since they usually only had one or two patients, it was like having a private duty nurse. Not bad all the way around.

In case you're wondering, hospital food is still as vicious as you would expect it to be. A step above or below airline food, depending on which airline you fly. But since I was taking a LOT of narcotics, most of my days were spent taking drugs and sleeping. Food was definitely not on my top ten list of concerns.