Top Five Worst Things About My Recent Hospital Stay

After spending three days in the hospital for the birth of our daughter, I thought I would offer Sacred Heart some constructive criticism regarding things that were lacking in our stay:

1. No Pool. Admittedly, I didn’t expect there to be a pool for hospital guests so this is a minor complaint. I’m just thinking out loud here, but maybe if a hospital was a little more like a hotel, patients might recover quicker, and their guests wouldn’t be so bored waiting for them to recover. People that plan hospitals never think of things like this.

2. Our hospital room was apparently located in a tunnel. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why we didn’t receive cell phone service in our room. Aside from abandoned coal mines and black holes, I honestly didn’t think places existed anymore that didn’t receive cell phone service. Well, you can now officially add Sacred Heart room #2007 to that list. So, on one of the biggest spread-the-news events in my life, we had to spend our hospital stay without convenient contact to the outside world. For the record, I did notice that I had a signal at other parts of the hospital, but I refused to be one of those self-important a-holes that carries on a loud conversation in a crowded waiting room or while walking through hallways that are supposed to be quiet. Consequently, the few transmissions I was able to make actually came from the parking lot outside the hospital. Sweet one, Sacred Heart.

3. No turn-down service for the beds. Actually, I have an additional complaint that there was no turn-up service either. If you are a spouse staying in the hospital, it’s a given that you’ll be sleeping on the couch with whatever random bedding supplies that can be scrounged. And while it may seem like easy pickings, it is generally frowned upon to steal blankets off of a sleeping baby.

4. My wife controlled the TV through her hospital bed. Wow. Talk about a design flaw. While there are several problems with this arrangement, the biggest was that my wife has horrible taste in television programming, as evidenced by her love of the show “The Biggest Loser.” Or, as I like to call it, “The Fattest Loser.” I think that pretty much sums up what I had to endure for three days. And naturally, even though it was readily available, the nursing staff refused to give me any morphine for my pain and suffering.

5. Room service doesn’t understand how most people use condiments. I ordered French toast, they sent it without butter. We called for some fries, but they didn’t send ketchup. They even sent a sandwich up with just bread and meat. You don’t realize how important condiments are until you are deprived of them. Your food just doesn’t taste right, and some things are downright inedible. Even though all hospital condiments come on the side anyway, they must be specially requested, or they assume you want everything served totally plain. Evidently, their philosophy is to err on the side of disappointing 99% of their patients.

To be fair, I do have a significant level of praise for the staff at Sacred Heart. They delivered a healthy addition to the Centaur family, meet Annie Jane: (Born 3-13-08, 7lbs 1oz.)

And here I am with both kids:

Please note that some of their Centaur features haven’t developed yet, as typically their horse legs and tail don’t blossom until their senior year of high school, just like the movie Teen Wolf. And yes, since these things sometimes skip a generation, I won’t bother to tell them of their pending transformation until they are freaking out in a bathroom prior to an important high school dance.

While we’re here, I wanted to address the lack of posts over the last few months. As you know, I am a busy, busy man. And having kids not only eats up a lot of my time, but it really saps my energy as well. While my I can still zombie my way through my workday, my evenings are now devoted to providing constant discipline to my children.

So, I do appreciate the column ideas people have sent to me (there have been several good ones), but lack of ideas isn’t the problem here. I promise, things will pick up again. All in due time.

Finally, regarding item #2 above, when I was finally able to receive a cell phone signal, I had over two dozen messages from Zillionaire nation waiting to congratulating me on the birth of Annie. Thanks everyone, you guys are the best.