UNITED STATES—I respect our first responders, nurses and anyone working in the medical arena. However, 2025 and the start of 2026 has been a tough one for me. Why? I feel like I have spent so much time in hospitals, I cannot put it into words. Last year, my father was seriously ill from May 2025 thru October 2025. He had a terrible infection in his foot that was something like a horror movie. When I say I’ve never seen anything like that, I mean it, it was awful to witness.
He started at one hospital, was moved to another hospital, then another hospital and we’re not talking about a week or two here, we’re talking about months on end. Getting to the hospital in the wee hours of the morning and staying until well past visiting hours. This transpired for months on end, while trying my best to balance working a FT job, a PT job, school and family at the same time. Burnout is a real-thing America.
Then kick off 2026 to thinking the week was going decent, and hearing an emergency erupt with my mom who has never been hospitalized as far as I can remember in my entire life. When you get that phone call, your body freezes, you panic and you run to the hospital. Wow, a stroke, not 1, but 2 strokes, one on each side of the body (right and left). Speech was difficult to understand, right-side of the body is not strong and still a massive work in progress, not to mention concerns about blood pressure being higher than normal.
Day 1 was tough, nearly 2 weeks later still visiting the hospital as much as possible nearly daily. Hospitals are just difficult to visit because you know 90 percent of the time someone is there because they are sick and they are being cared for. For some people, it can be quite lonely. I’ve seen plenty of people in the hospital where they barely get any visitors at all, and that is painful to witness, when you are seeing loved ones.
That mentally has to do a number on the loved ones and the actual patient who is being treated. That loneliness has got to eat away at you, and I think people having visitors, rather family or friends, is critical to one’s improving health. That emotional support means a lot for the patient’s healing journey. The doctors, that is another story. They tend to come in when you least expect it. Usually, super-duper early in the morning, and a lot of the time, they try to do those super quick visits. Like 5-10 mins, but I had to on several occasions with my dad do the run down with the doctors to get the details on exactly what is going on?
So, I was asking all the questions? What is he suffering from? What is the solution? Where will he be in a few weeks, months, years? What caused this and so much more? Sometimes doctors speak in doctor terms to keep that wall up between patient and family. The nurses come and go, but I will admit, both of my parents have gotten some stellar ones that make you feel like they are taken care of, even when you’re not able to be at the hospital and you’re worried about things, the nurses reassure you all is good.
Where does this leave me with the hospital visits? It can be a lot for the visitor, I’ve noticed myself at times mentally checked out, you have the worst, and I mean absolute worst eating habits because you’re snacking and eating foods that you shouldn’t. Why?
You’re not worried about rather something is healthy of not, you just need fuel in your body, and the vending machine is right there. One thing that has become crystal clear to me with all the time I have spent in hospitals in the past 6 plus months is that life is short. You never know when your time or someone you care about could be up. Cherish it, respect it and ensure the people you love are well aware of your love for them.
