What To Expect From A Long Hospital Stay And Recovery

Are you going to be staying at a hospital or other healthcare facility for quite a long time? There is no doubt that your experience will be challenging, and that you will wish you were at home or anywhere else at some point. There are ways to make your stay easier and more pleasant though. What are they?

Don't Be A Whiner

During your stay in hospital, at a rehabilitation center, or at another type of long-term healthcare facility, you'll come into contact with many different kinds of healthcare professionals. They may include quite a few different kinds of doctors as well as nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel. The latter go by all kinds of different names, depending on where you live.

Depending on your individual health situation, you may depend on them to help you use the bathroom, shower, get a glass of water, and similar intimate and important things. This front-line staff will probably also show up if you press the "assistance" button because you're suddenly in a lot of pain or you think there is something really wrong with you.

If you're spending quite a while at a facility, you will develop a reputation among the nursing staff. How they treat you will in part depend on how you treat them, and if you're known as someone who frequently "calls Wolf", you may not get the assistance you need when you need it. The first first key to a pleasant long-term stay is not being seen as a whiner, then. 

Don't:

• Press the button for assistance every time you're bored
• Ask for water every five minutes
• Demand to be brought softer, harder, or different pillows all the time
• Complain the other patients are too loud continuously
• Say the food sucks — the person who comes when you press the button isn't the cook
• Say: "My hankie fell on the floor, pick it up please" one minute, and ask for your pencil to be handed to you three minutes later
• Be an unpleasant, nasty person

Instead, call for assistance only when necessary, and not because your life could be slightly more comfortable. 

It is clearly not nice to depend on someone else's assistance to use the bathroom. If your nursing assistant is also irritated when you say you need to use the bathroom, even after you waited 45 minutes to pee, you may feel like being grumpy. That's probably not going to help you much, however. Instead, try to be positive — say you're so happy that you can finally use the bathroom, and say thank you.

See Also: On Medicare? When You Go to the Hospital, Make Sure You Are Admitted

Showing an interest in the staff's life and being nice will usually help. "Did you have a good weekend?", or "Having a busy day today?" will often get a conversation going. You can also ask how you can make the staff's life easier. Anticipate what you are going to need in advance. When they're already at your bed, ask the nursing assistant to line 10 glasses of water up for you, rather than calling every time you'd like a drink. Anything that makes you look like a pleasant person will benefit you. 

How To Have A More Pleasant Long-Term Hospital Stay

Keep Yourself Occupied

When you're in hospital or at another longer-term healthcare facility for more than a few weeks or so, life can soon get extremely boring. Boredom — along with worries about what's going on at home and about your health — can lead to depression and other nasty mental health consequences quite easily. By keeping yourself occupied with activities you enjoy, you do a lot to preserve your sanity.

There's often quite a lot you can do to keep busy, though your actual possibilities clearly depend on your health issues and what's offered at your facility. Almost everyone will enjoy and be able to use one or more of the following:

• Internet-connected devices
• A phone
• Books
• Radio

You'll be able to access websites for information, movies, forums, e-books, games and talk to relatives and friends on Skype or something like that. If you could take just one thing to hospital, it should definitely be an internet-connected device — providing, of course, that the hospital does have a connection. 

People who have free use of their hands can also engage in activities such as crocheting, knitting, playing cards (perhaps with other patients), and any other not-too-messy craft or game that can be performed in a hospital setting. 

In addition, try to get friends, relatives or both to visit you on different days, so you have company every day. This will definitely make the time go a little more quickly, and they can bring you stuff from the outside world — like good food, if the hospital food isn't what you'd like it to be.

Organize Activities And Get To Know Other Patients

Many hospitals and other healthcare facilities organize activities for patients. They can include games, singing, crafts, and movie nights. If your facility isn't currently doing that, you might like to get something going. Healthcare facilities almost always have communal rooms where things like that could take place. You could make your own stay and that of other patients a whole lot more interesting, and the time will seem to go so much faster that way. 

Even if there aren't any activities and you don't want to be the one to try to get any organized, you can probably chat with other patients and get to know some. Even if you have a private room, there are probably opportunities to interact with others.

See Also: WHO Says a Visit to the Hospital is Far Riskier than Flying due to Medical Errors and Infections

Never underestimate the power of laughter. You may not be into cliniclowns, but finding someone to really laugh with will benefit your health, your sanity, and will simply make life an awful lot more pleasant. So go on — be a dare-devil! Be open to contact with people you would not normally even talk to, and see whether you can make each other laugh!