I Hate Hospitals.

I hate hospitals. I was a sickly child until I was about 5, that's when my parents finally got fed up with constantly paying for new medicine. They took me to the doctor and scheduled me to have my tonsils and adenoids taken out and tubes put in my ears in hopes of clearing up some of the infections that I had been plagued with. I was to young to understand what was going on, and I don't remember much about it. I do remember laying on a hospital bed with a mask on my face while an odd looking man dressed in blue told me to breath deeply and count as high as I could. The other thing that I remember quite vividly is coming out of my sleep to find an IV sticking out of my hand covered in a blood soaked towel. I immediately panicked and ripped it out, which led to more pain, more bleeding, and more panic. It was at this point, at the ripe old age of 5 that I decided that I hated hospitals and never wanted to set foot in another one as long as I lived.

Imagine waking up with this in your hand at 5 years old.

For several years I managed to avoid doctors, and it wasn't until I was 15 or 16 that I started finding myself in hospitals with greater and greater frequency. That's when I started breaking bones, and I continued breaking them until I was 19, one after the other, at least once a year. When I finally stopped breaking them I managed to convince my insurance company to fund a surgery to help repair my hand after a work related injury. That was last November, and it was only a few months ago that I finally finished up the follow up visits for that.

My longest stay in a hospital was after my car accident when I was rushed to the trauma unit and held captive for a week or so while nurses attempted to stuff bland food down my throat and pump me full of as many drugs as possible so that I wouldn't whine about being there. After being in there for a few days I began to lose my mind. I was already beyond sick of being there and I wanted nothing to do with that awful place. Then I saw a glimmer of hope. My physical therapist told me that if I could walk down the hall without her help that I could go home the next morning. I got out of my bed, nearly passed out, and then stumbled down the hall on one crutch with a broken Femur (thigh), Scapula (shoulder blade), and Metacarpal (hand) with my bare ass hanging out of my hospital gown, dragging a my bag of Morphine behind me. My PT congratulated me and then told me that she would check on me in the morning to make sure that I was still okay to go. Morning rolled around and as soon as I woke up I asked my nurse when the PT would be in to see me. The nurse informed me that they didn't have a PT that could come in on a Saturday and that I would have to wait til Monday to be released. This enraged me. I immediately called my Father who broke his Femur when he was 16 as well, he spent 3 months in hospital so he definitely knew what it was like to be trapped like that. He rushed right down to the trauma unit and raised hell, they told him the same thing they told me and he asked me if I wanted to wait or if I was ready to go home. I told him I wanted to go home, and he told me to pack up my shit, get rid of my IV and get into the wheelchair that he had "borrowed" from the nurses' station. I took out the IV, which hurt like hell, and stumbled around the room to help him gather up my things. He took me home after a brief pit stop to grab some fast food and then I struggled up 2 flights of stairs and got into bed. It was only a matter of a few days before I was out of bed and taking care of myself, but I know if I had stayed in that hospital as long as they wanted me to I would have taken much longer to get to that point. After all of that, they slapped me with a $60,000 bill. Imagine what it would have looked like if I hadn't broken out when I did.
My latest run in with hospitals came earlier this week when I was informed that my coworker that was battling Cancer couldn't get his insurance to cover the treatment that he needed. This is a retired Marine that served in Vietnam, and then worked for the Railroad until his retirement a few years ago. He had benefits on top of benefits, but none of them would cover the four $30,000 injections ($120,000 total) that he would need over the next 3 months. Tim was the kind of guy that never wanted to put a burden on anyone, and I feel that the fact that he passed within a few days of hearing what it would cost for SOME of the treatment that he would need to survive is what made him go so quickly. He refused any life support, and didn't put up much of a fight at the end. Two days before he died he was joking with his military buddies about how he was going to beat the Cancer and get back home as soon as possible so that he could mow his lawn. The day before he died I saw him out in his driveway, and he waved at me as I passed. Two hours later he was in the hospital, and a little over a day after that he was gone.  We've got these ridiculously high prices for the drugs that Cancer patients NEED to survive, but normal people can't afford them without serious financial help. Basically we've put a price on human life, and it's a price that only the wealthy can afford to pay. Do they deserve to live any more or any less than anyone else? I don't think they do.

What could possibly fit in this that cost $30,000 to produce?

Hospitals drain you of any hopes, dreams, and ambitions you might have. They're very negative places filled with suffering and death. People that are unhealthy need positive things going on around them, not negativity. I had to wait 12 hours to have the rod put in my leg after my wreck because a young woman came in soon after me who had been shot a dozen or so times, and took priority over me. Rather than hearing good things about it from the doctors and nurses I just heard lots of panic and negativity while they tried to silence me and pass me from room to room so that I could bother someone else with my questions about my own treatment. All I wanted was to be put in a room where I could watch some TV and get away from all of the negative things going on around me. Instead they put me right in the thick of the action, and stressed me out more than necessary. I understand that they were trying to get me the help that I needed, and I appreciate that, but there was more going on than just the physical damage, and they always seem to overlook that part of the picture.
Hospitals drain the life out of their
victims
patients, and it's just not right. The system is flawed because hospitals and pharmaceutical companies know that people would rather be in debt for the rest of their lives than dead.