Just in case any of you or your loved ones every has to stay a night or more in the hospital, I would like to share some of the things I learned during my recent stay.  In short, the nurses and other caregivers were absolutely terrific!  However, I did pick up a few pointers that could make your next stay a bit better:

1. Not every person you encounter in a hospital knows when “you’re just kidding.”  I now think the reason hospitals might be short-staffed these days is because so many of their employees now work for airport security companies.
2. Never take your bodily functions – even those littles ones we never discuss – for granted.  These can make the difference between food or no food; staying longer versus going home; etc.
3. There is no such things as “modesty” in a hospital.  Even if you think you might be appropriately modest, when you leave the hospital, you’ll think of yourself as an exhibitionist.
4. I love Jell-O!  Yes, those little cubes of strawberry Jell-O never tasted so good.
5. The very best time of day to draw blood samples is 3:00am.  The reason for this is that at precisely 3:00am CT, gravitational and earth centrifugal forces perfectly align to produce blood flow with a single prick of the skin.  At any other time, it might take three or four pokes to accomplish the same thing.
6. Just because you want to see your surgeon or one of his residents, does not mean that they want to see you.
7. Millennials in any profession have a hard time making change with a purchase.  This attribute carries through to drug dosage calculations.  Sometimes it is good to double-check, just for fun.  It is not, however, a good thing to brag too loudly about catching their mistakes.
8. When they ask you to rate your pain on a 1 – 10 scale, mix it up a little bit.  Watch how they scratch their heads when they think something is not quite right.
9. There are narcotics and other mind-numbing drugs that can almost make you forget the Cardinals’ baseball season is over.
10. Everything takes longer than it seems in a hospital when you are uncomfortable or hungry or waiting for the next adventure.

Fun times!  Have a “top ten” day!