Originally posted by: purepolly
Instead keep on top of your pain - ask when you become aware of it - not after hours of 10/10 pain, be flexible (those slippers may be a priority to you, but to me the guy two rooms down choking on his own secretions rates MUCH higher, and be realistic about your hospital stay (a hospital is not a hotel). You will see your Dr once or maybe twice a day, but your nurse is your advocate in the system, learn to work with her in the system.
That statement kind of irks me. You pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to the hospital directly or indirectly. For that amount of money, I would expect that if I need slippers I won't have to wait 2 hours. Also, in my experience, if you ask for meds when you become aware of them, you are in for at least 30 minutes, sometimes an hour of 10/10 anyway because there's only one nurse and she's busy with the dude choking on his secretions.
Maybe I'm bringing my own "extremely minor" surgery issues into this. I had my tonsils out and due to my asthma, they wanted me to stay overnight for monitoring. I would ask the nurse to close the door because the lights were bright and he repeatedly left it slightly ajar, meaning within 3 minutes it was wide open. Then I beeped them for some asthma medicine. It took 30 minutes and then he wouldn't even give it to me, even though I felt I needed it. I didn't die or anything but I was uncomfortable for about 30 minutes. So overall 1 hour of discomfort.
The next day, I was in maybe 7/10 pain and buzzed them for meds. It literally took an hour. Yeah ok, my pain is not an emergency but how can this place charge thousands of dollars for this type of service? It's not my problem they don't have enough nurses.
Nevermind the fact that they almost accidentally killed me by preparing an IV drip of penicillin derivatives when I was allergic to penicillin and it was right on my charts. Only the anesthesiologist caught that one or I might be dead right now.
In summation, yes you have to be patient because being impatient gets you nowhere. But that doesn't mean you ought to be ok with it. For the amount of money we funnel into the medical system here, you'd think we would be waited on hand and foot. I get infinitely better service at the candy store when choosing chocolates that I'm buying for $2 than at a hospital that got, what, $10,000 for my surgery?
So, OP, just remember they are going to treat you like cattle and assume you don't mind obnoxiously long waits. Don't eat 12 hours before surgery and make sure you have someone you know who will come visit you and give you what you need because the nurse will be gone for 2 hours at a time dealing with secretions. It would also be wise to have someone there when you first wake up because doctors like to tell you all kinds of important crap within 2 seconds of you awakening from a deep coma-like anesthetic, and your brain will naturally hemorrhage this information back out within 30 seconds and you will end up not remembering you shouldn't brush your teeth standing up.
Cliffs:
1. It's stupid to pay $10,000 and have to wait 2 hours for slippers or 1 hour for meds, but it happens. Be Prepared
2. Have someone visiting you post-op to make sure you can have slippers within 2 hours and so you don't forget important instructions
3. Wear cow pajamas because you are cattle to them anyway
