How to go to the hospital for fun and profit – Orange County Register

Being in the hospital is as fun as a barrel full of monkeys, do you not agree?

In other words, if the monkeys attack you day and night with sharp needles, waking up so that they can ask you how much you have urinated that day, putting wrists on blood pressure on you so closely that you want to push them back, and you carefully ignore when you press the bedside buzzer to alert them, you have a stroke.

Let me say directly that I do not compare nurses to monkeys, because, honestly, I think you are all angels of mercy. I don’t even know how you support people like me. And it’s not even for you. These are people who come to visit.

It’s true, dear readers. If you have already been to the hospital, you have probably received visitors from time to time. Visitors are good. This means that people care enough about you to save their savings to park in the hospital’s parking lot, put their driver licenses at the reception, spend 45 minutes for walking on the 4th floor trying to find the entrance, then later your room, extend strange smells and hard lights, and, for some of them, surpose their fear of ending there.

I have experienced this several times. And, because I am a kind of philanthropic girl, here are some tips for visiting someone in the hospital, shot down from my many years of wisdom.

1. Call first and find out if your chosen victim even wants visitors. Maybe they prefer that you have just sent real food. Some people do not want anyone who will see them without their toupets and their eyebrow pencils. Some just want to sleep or are so doped that they do not remember who you are. Some really appreciated this episode of “Judge Judy” that you have just interrupted. Others do not want to be forced to be polite when they are grumpy and injured. Or maybe they don’t like You. (Remind me of telling you my story about visitors who cannot be told in a family newspaper.)
2. Bring food. Yeah, yes, see if the food you bring is politically correct, but let me say to you: almost all external foods are better than the things they give you to the hospital. When I undergone tumor surgery from the brain a dozen years ago, they fed me with steroids that made me hungry incredibly. The annuals began to seem tasty to me. And then they would bring out this bad hospital food (cheese sandwich transformed on white bread, yum) and I moaned. I don’t know how they think people are going to improve when they eat this CRUD. Fortunately for me, my friends presented themselves with real food. My friend Samantha even led to Thai Nakorn to Stanton to bring me their grilled clams, for which she will certainly go to paradise.
3. Stay only for 10 minutes. After delivering your food, your presence is only marginally required, so look at yourself as a nice driver from Uber eats. Now, I realize that there are exceptions, especially if you sit there and look at “Judge Judy”, without the need to be entertained. But you must assume that your presence is necessary to show that you care, then beat it. If you get very, very strong vibrations that you are always welcome, very well. Like, sobbing hard, when you get up to leave. Otherwise, go out before your parking bill goes through the roof. Visitors are exhausting. Some patients find that they have to go home just to rest.
4. Get a baby-sitter for children. Now, if you bring them to say goodbye to grandfather, who is on the way to this large fishing place in the sky, very good. Or if they are really patient’s children. Otherwise, leave them at home. Hospitals slip into most children and they behave badly. And if they are my children, they are probably going through the cabinets and play with language depressants.
5. Do not tell the disgusting patient of hospital stories on your own operations or procedures. “And then they cut their bad leg!” Really. What did you think?

Now for you patients. How to get rid of your visitors? Here is what I do: simulate a heart attack and press the nurse’s call button. Make a disgusting procedure that you are about to have. “Oh, well, they will remove the catheter now because there is a lot of blood. Oh, you don’t want to stay? Thank you for having passed.” Be selfish. You can just tell people, “ok, I’m going to sleep now” and turn around. If they do not disappear, cut them from your will.

Originally published: April 2, 2025 at 7:00 a.m.