So i’ve officially decided that the worst part about hospital isn’t the food, the dirty shared bathrooms, the hypochondriac in the bed next to me begging for drugs, or the random nurse who likes to make fun of you and tease you when you’re in pain or having a bad day. Nope, it’s the waiting. It has actually been one of the hardest things to deal with since the day I got diagnosed, when I had to wait for results, or wait for the next surgery, or wait for a surgeon to interpret the results. In hospital though, it’s the most brain-destroyingly soul-sappingly sleep-depriving version of “waiting” that i’ve ever had.

The first few days here went fine. I say that, because I was zonked out on pain killers for 80% of each day, and the other 20% I was sleeping. Those are the days where you are in that stereotypical hospital daze. Time just floats past as you stare blankly at your curtain or at some daytime TV show, but you’re not really worried about anything because you’re too focussed on the pain and trying to sleep. After those initial few days though, when you’ve healed enough to spend most of the day in reality rather than drug-induced slumber, you start to actually experience hospital… and the waiting begins.

Waiting for the painkillers so that you can breathe normally again.

Waiting for your sleeping tablets so you can get to sleep.

Waiting in the morning for the registrar and head nurse (or whatever the title is called) to do their rounds and suss out what treatment you need today.

Waiting for breakfast. Waiting for lunch. Waiting for dinner.

Waiting for people to visit, then waiting for them to leave.

Waiting for the guy in the bed next to you to answer his really loud mobile phone, which seems to ring lots, but never gets answered.

Waiting for the doctors to come around, and tell you if there’s any progress.

Waiting for those painful muscle spasms to go away.

Waiting for the nurse to respond to your buzzer when you need to use the bathroom (they always seem to take ages when you need something urgent, but be there instantly when you just need some water).

… and the big one, waiting to get the f$%# out of here.

Each type of waiting in itself is painful for it’s own reasons, but it’s that last one that has finally made me crumble. I’m well enough now that the days have stopped being a medical ordeal, testing my abilities to handle pain and discomfort, and have instead became days that test my ability to watch Free-to-air TV when the only things on are Oprah, Ellen, or Dr Phil. I want to go home. I want to sleep in a bed next to my wife, and not a curtain away from a guy that is faking every illness under the sun just to get morphine and codeine. I want to eat mum’s roast pork and wifey’s adobo, and not unidentifiable lumps of meat with the same microwaved vegetables (where DO they find “fish” that looks like a cube?). I want to have a shower in my bathroom, which is free of random blood and bodily fluids splattered on every surface. I want to lie in my bed, which doesn’t cut off circulation due to being 1ft too short for me.

I know this seems like just another generic whinge about hospitals, and it pretty much is… but there’s just a point where you lose the ability to shrug it all off. As a whole, i’ve been very lucky here. The nurses (apart from 1) are extremely friendly, very well trained, very understanding, and have gone above and beyond on multiple occasions to help comfort me here. The hospital itself is high tech, clean (apart from the bathrooms), and well equipped. It’s not that THIS hospital has given me a bad experience, it’s that hospital in general is just not a nice place to be. A few days, sure. I’ve done more “few day” stays at hospital than I can even remember, and they go by without a hitch. Once you pass a week though, you’ve been through the food rotation a few times,  you’ve been through the nurse shift rotations a few times, and you’ve been away from the comforts of home life long enough that it starts feeling like months/years ago, not weeks.

On the outside world, days seem to pass like minutes, and weeks seem to pass like days. “Last week” is a crisp clear memory, and “next week” is coming up too soon.”Monday already? Damn”.

In hospital minutes seem like hours, and when every day the doctors say “we’re not sure when you can go home, maybe a few days from now”… days seem like YEARS.

I want to go home.