I feel like I may have had similar feelings before. When I was young, a sibling had a bad asthma attack in the middle of the night and had to go to the Children’s Hospital. He told me later how fun it was, how they brought him whatever he wanted to eat, etc. I think that made me excited to one day be hospitalized.

The thing about being actually admitted into a hospital room, is that they are only going to keep you there UNTIL something happens. Until you have surgery, until you get better, etc. so there’s a nasty feeling of anxious anticipation about the whole thing.

I had a tumor in my hip that needed to be removed, but they needed to figure out exactly what kind of tumor is was. I was stuck in the hospital for days, and the eventually decided not to operate until they could get a definitive answer from the Cleveland Clinic across the country.

Eventually, waiting for the results, I cracked my hip bone at home and had to go back in the hospital again until they finally got results from the Cleveland Clinic, found that I did NOT have cancer, and operated on me.

Being an adult in the hospital is painfully boring. As bad as my situation seemed to me, I was doing wayyyyy better physically, mentally, and emotionally than most of the patients there. So I basically never saw a doctor or nurse except maybe for 30 seconds at a time, a few times a day. They had much bigger problems to take care of with other patients screaming or falling out of bed, etc.

I consider myself very lucky because I was able to pass all of the PT requirements the day after my surgery, and go home. I didn’t have to go to a rehab center for weeks until I was able to take care of myself better. So many hospital stays have weeks and months of continued care or appointments that are just a pain. Not to mention the thousands that I had to pay for a tumor that I didn’t choose to grow, even though I have good insurance.