So I had surgery. It was painful, expensive and time-consuming but also kind of fun.

Being in hospital is a suspended state of living. People bring you food and drinks, check your blood pressure, dose you up on painkillers and measure fluids leaking in and out of your body.

Your friends visit you and you have time to spend with them, without distraction. There’s also no pressure to go anywhere or do anything because you can’t.

People send you flowers, bring you snacks and call you. You feel really, really loved and also a bit chuffed with all the attention.

You can get away with looking like a particularly demented zombie for the better part of a week. You don’t have to wash your face or get up to pee because you can’t.

The drama of being in hospital and being in legitimate amounts of pain is not the worst part about surgery. Recovery is much worse. It’s slow, people forget that there’s anything wrong with you and the novelty wears off. Weeks later you’re still in pain and feeling exhausted but everyone has moved on.

Things I learnt while I was in hospital:
– It’s more prestigious for nurses to work in the public system than the private because apparently it’s much harder/more demanding, they do more complex surgeries and they have better equipment.
– You have to be a registered nurse to deliver narcotics (enrolled nurses can’t go near the morphine)
– Morphine is not fun at all.
– The food really is mostly bad.
– Hospital is an incredibly noisy place. The call button for the nurses sounds like a door bell. It’s like having a lifetime’s worth of Jehovah’s Witnesses on your front porch.
– Visitors do really help so if you have a family member or friend in hospital, don’t be afraid to visit them.

Have you been to hospital recently? What was it like for you?