Hospital Thoughts - September 17, 2025

Hey. I've felt like I should make a blog for a while but didn't really know what to make it about. I recently got admitted to a hospital for the first time in my life, so I guess I'll write about that. This'll be a little stream of consciousness. I just want to write about whatever right now.

For about a month I've been unable to move around much without feeling heart palpitations, or feeling like I'm about to pass out. I get dizzy, nauseous, my vision goes black and white, and I have to crumple to the floor because I'm too weak to even lift an arm up. Usually it subsided after a minute of panting, but after a few weeks I couldn't cook a meal without nearly passing out, lying down, trying to get up again to keep cooking, and nearly passing out again over and over. It was really scary. I thought I would die if I let myself pass out. Even using the restroom was difficult because the moment I got back up, I'd need to fall in my bed and recover. Laying in bed I would have to sit there, usually panting a bit, and listen to my heartbeat pound in my ears all night.

I finally got bloodwork done and my doctor said I needed to go to the emergency room immediately because my hemoglobin levels were dangerously low. The nurses said I had about 1/3rd the amount of blood a person should normally have. I was kind of hemorrhaging blood out my ass to the point of bleeding out.

I'm deathly afraid of needles. I sweat and hyperventilate, and hours after a blood draw my arm is dead to me. I still mentally feel the needle going in and out of my skin and I can't calm down for a long time. In the hospital I got my first IV put in my arm. It was botched by the time I got a transfusion, and it really. Really. Hurt. My vein got stiff and there was a hard bubble of blood bloating the skin on the inside of my elbow. I could feel the pressure all down my arm. It reminded me of the day before, where the nurse said she stabbed through my vein with the needle while trying to draw blood.

I remember the nurse's reaction to the blown IV. Unconcerned. Like she couldn't believe I was in any pain. An odd curiousity about how my skin was inflating. Another nurse had to put in a new IV in a much smarter spot on the back of my forearm, where it wouldn't get aggravated. I don't understand why any sane person would put an IV in the fold of an elbow. Of course it would be uneven and prone to injury.

Having liquid get pumped into your vein is a weird feeling. A lot of the time it's pretty horrible. I also had iron pumped into my veins, and at times it was excrutiating. I'm thankful for the one nurse who set the speed of the pumping to nearly half as fast, or I would've been crying for an hour and a half straight, every day. They have to 'wash' the IV when you're done, and one of the nurses would pump the saline with the plunger so fast I thought my vein would pop. I hate the cold feeling of saline. I needed entire bags of it during my stay at the hospital.

It's weird being in a hospital bed. The nurses are there to help you with things like getting you up on your feet, getting you bedding, getting you water, making sure you aren't in pain, making sure you get food, making sure your vitals are good, making sure you're taking your medication, checking to see how much blood you've expelled in the toilet, relaying everything the doctors say about you, and relaying everything you do to your assigned doctor. It's embarrassing. They're nice to me, but I can't help but feel like every click of the 'request nurse' button is just another instance of annoying them at a bad time.

Then the other nurses come in to take my blood. It's funny how many times you need your blood taken when you're at the hospital because you don't have enough blood. I lost count of how many times they did it. I think it was nearly 30 times. Having a nurse come in to take blood and having to show arms covered in bruises and 3 bandages from blood draws from earlier in the day is very scary and a bit embarrassing. I think at this point I'm not really scared of needles anymore. At some point I kinda just gave up. I can just look at it going in my arm now.

There's a distinct loneliness in a hospital room. I was on an all liquid diet for 2 days. Nothing but broth and juice. For a colonoscopy I had to gulp down nothing but disgusting laxative water. After the colonoscopy I could finally eat. My nurse had said I'd be getting dinner in about an hour or so. Still hazy from anesthesia, I sat in that room for nearly 5 hours. She'd said the doctor already talked to me before she left, and I couldn't remember if they did or not. I was just sitting around, not knowing if I was gonna stay another night, and not knowing my results. Every single person I knew was blowing up my phone asking whats happening, as if demanding my attention when I was exhausted, in pain, in an uncomfortable bed, starving, thirsty, and terribly lonely in a dark room with this fucking rubber needle stabbed into my arm that won't stop hurting. I don't think the nurses updated my information so that I was eligible for a dinner that evening. Only when they came in for more bloodwork did I ask about my food and it finally came to my door. It was chewy, microwaved rice and a tiny slab of fish. I couldn't really help crying. I could hardly stuff my face as fast as I could before they asked for the plate back. Then I was alone again.

I don't know. It all felt really awful. The nurses are just doing their jobs, and I'm just there to get blood and tests to see what's wrong. But it's distinctly nerve wracking feeling like you're doing something wrong in a place like that. My last ER visit was also nerve wracking. It was long before any of these symptoms, but I felt like an annoyance, especially when the doctor tersely explained how I was overreacting to massive amounts of blood coming out of me. Sitting in a hospital room for 5+ hours not knowing what you should be doing, what the doctors are doing, bearing uncomfortable pain, and then the ER gives an announcement that they're closing is not something I was prepared for when I went there for the very first time. It makes you feel abandoned. It's especially frustrating that the same reason you went to your first ER visit and got hand-waved away, is really the same reason you've been admitted to the hospital a year later.