Fiat Lux

Scott's surgery was yesterday & went fine. He is home from the hospital and resting more or less comfortably. He'll be home all week, and phone calls are welcome.

I suppose it would be ungrateful of me to complain much about the experience, since the staff at Kaiser were all very nice and helpful, but it seems to me that hospitals in general are sucky places for people to actually get better.

So much noise, light, activity -- and the practice of sticking multiple patients in the same room means that even when you're being left alone, someone is coming in to check on your neighbor. The first room Scott was put into was so small that there was barely room to squeeze a chair in next to the bed -- the only reason I could was that Scott was in the corner next to a sink, so I was able to wiggle a chair into that small alcove. His neighbor on the other side of the curtain didn't even have that much extra space. And the third guy in the room had a very noisy case of pneumonia; you could literally hear him snoring 30 feet down the hall. After a few hours of that, and some words with the head nurse, Scott was moved into a larger, quieter room, but even so he didn't get much sleep.

I know there's reasons why hospitals are set up that way -- and aside from trying to cram too many people into a too-small room, I'm sure there are good reasons for just about all of it. But it does seem to me that the whole calculus is off somehow, and is designed more to make things eaiser on the hospital staff than on the patient. Shouldn't allowing patients to experience restful, healing sleep be a part of the equation?

All complaining aside, I am grateful that he got good care and that he's back home where he belongs, sleeping in our bed with Tommy cuddled up next to him.