Barbara is home

Barbara came home yesterday after 5 days in the hospital. She was sick all last week with a virus, then ended up in the emergency room on Friday with what turned out to be severe anemia: she had lost two-thirds of her blood to abdominal bleeding. She had transfusions to improve her blood count, then fought a fever for a couple of days until she was well enough to go home. She spent two sleepless nights in an insanely noisy unit that included the usual hospital clanging and poking, as well as a really unfortunate patient who loudly growled like a bear all night. As Warren says, hospitals are for intervention, not rest. Her terrific doctors got her moved to a very quiet part of the hospital, and the incredible nursing staff worked to leave her alone for a couple of night so she could sleep. That helped her get better. It seems to me that the role of rest and sleeping is not yet well respected by most hospitals.