Best recommendations when in the hospital?

phxteach

I have learned that hospitalization can occur unexpectedly and thought I'd share a few insights:
Bring your own toiletries.
Bring your own pajamas - hospital gowns are uncomfortable.
Bring flavored water mix-in.
Bring your own lancets. You have to use their meter, but how they get the blood doesn't matter. How big a hole they consistently make in your skin to obtain a blood sample is in your control. Take your thinner gauge lancets!


What can you add to the list?

zcb94

I didn't know you could bring lancets. That would've been good to know earlier this year when I was violently ill due to wound infection.
Although Mom cooked for Dad and I every so often during the time, I wish I'd have planned on bringing all meals for the whole thing because, some of the time, my hospital cooks wouldn't season or cook my food correctly, and I was almost always missing a vital part of my breakfasts "due to carb limit." It sometimes made me wonder how they'd feel if life "could not send all due to (you-name-it) limit," such as money, love, healing, or whatever. At one time, I could easily have staged a floor-wide NPO strike (like a hunger strike but deeper) against them if not for the fact that nourishment helps with recovery. Don't get me wrong, I'm generally a pretty nice lady, but when you get between me and my rights of any kind, hear me roar! If you get sick or hurt at all, please take my advice and bring a cooler large enough to get you through the stay (have a loved one help you plan and pack if necessary).

phxteach

Even though it was in the printed directory to not allow food storage in the room, the nurses did bring in a dorm sized refrigerator for me to put my low carb yogurt in. So, even if the rules say one thing, it is worth asking a nurse "what if..."

Oh yeah, and IV placement hurts like **** for a bit. Ask for those pain drugs in advance. IV in the forearm works much, much better than in the elbow crease.