A few lingering observations on my two days in hospital:
①
This is the first time I’ve been hospitalized since I was a kid and got hit by a car, but I’m an expert on hospitalizations. As my wife’s health deteriorated in her final years, she was hospitalized dozens of times, and always I was at her side, at her request.
Almost none of what happened to me would be recognizable to my wife. She was frequently treated rudely without a reason, many times had to correct doctors’ misunderstandings about her conditions, and doctors and nurses would often explain things to me, the man, even when answering questions Stephanie herself had asked. Etc, etc.
During my two days at Harborview, whenever I clicked the button hoping for a glass of water or needing to pee, someone came within seconds, or at worst, minutes. But when Steph was hospitalized, those wait times after pressing the help button were noticeably longer, often half an hour or beyond. A few times, I ended up carrying her to the toilet, because she couldn’t wait any longer.
Other than the boredom after the surgery, nothing even slightly frustrating happened during my hospital stay, and I’m still cogitating on why my experience was so different from Stephanie’s.
Most obviously, I’m a man, and men get better medical treatment, because most doctors are men, and every sector of society subconsciously looks down on women.
But also, my problem had a solution, while Stephanie always had three different fatal diagnoses going on. She was incurable, everyone knew it, and she was routinely treated without any spark of doctors giving-a-damn — but it’s the incurables who need the best care and the most hope, damn it.
Much as I enjoyed and appreciated my stay and excellent treatment, it’s left me re-angered about all the sub-par medical care my wife received.
②
When Stephanie died in a hospital in Madison WI, it was of course the worst day of my life and hers, but I’m glad I was there for her at the end. It’s why I moved back to Seattle a few years later — I didn’t want to die in a city where nobody knew me well enough to give a damn when I died.
Here in Seattle, there’s family, and they certainly drive me batty, but I love ’em. They’ll be there if possible when it’s time to die, and I’ll do the same for them.
③
I don’t yet believe it, but two hospital employees came to my room, separately, IDing themselves as being from the Registration and Billing Departments, and explained that I won’t be bankrupted.
First, all my tests in the emergency room, including that pricey CAT scan, will be covered by Medicare as “in-hospital.” And second, I was assured that of the 20% that’s my responsibility, any balance I can’t pay will be forgiven, simply by establishing that Social Security is my only income.
If they weren’t blowing blue smoke up my pale ass, then just this once, I won’t have to scream about the injustice of for-profit medical care. But it’s still an injustice, even if I don’t have to scream. Universal health care NOW.
④
Since the earliest days of COVID in 2020, I have worn masks whenever I’m indoors and in public, except in restaurants while eating. Masks are no longer required in hospitals, though, and half my doctors and nurses had naked faces. I stubbornly wore my mask, until they put me on oxygen through a tube in my nose, and the nurse said, “It’ll stay in better without the mask.” After that, I was maskless, even after they took me off oxygen.
⑤
My backpack is my “everything kit,” holding any and all items I might need under ordinarily circumstances, from cough drops to bandaids, laxatives to a change of underwear. Of course, I kept the backpack at my bedside during the entire stay, and because I’m me, it’s covered with political pins — anti-Trump sloganeering, “I’m not worried about other people’s genitals,” “Ask me about Antifa,” etc.
Out in the world, when I’m riding the bus or whatever, anyone who compliments one of my pins is immediately given the pin, no charge, because I order them in bulk and spreading subversion is the point. At the hospital, though, the first two workers who said “Nice pin” got only a grunt from me. Sorry, I wasn’t at my best.
After the surgery, feeling alive again, I handed out six pins to four nurses, an ultrasound tech, and a lady from housekeeping.
⑥
The TV was on only to watch the Seattle Mariners lose a playoff game, with the sound muted because I can’t handle the play-by-play inanities. During commercial breaks, I clicked around, searching for something that wasn’t an insult to everyone watching, and there are a few shows that don’t seem entirely stupid. But the commercials are bleakly horrendous — talking bears selling beer, fluffy angels selling real estate, and beautiful but empty-headed people falling in love in the elevator because they’re both wearing the same deodorant.
Whatever intelligence people have, turning on a television whittles it away.
⑦
The entire hospital seemed very clean, which is what you’d want in a hospital. The only ‘unclean’ exception was a lone, dead fly behind opaque plastic in the light fixture directly over my head in my hospital room. I called him Larry, and we had long conversations about philosophy and politics.
10/7/2025
Leave a Reply