Skyways and hallways and tunnels, oh my!

How do you keep busy? Work? Family? Hobbies? Bindging on certain T.V. series? Well, over here in hospital la la land, keeping busy has a different meaning. There are certain schedules that have to be kept to, IV antibiotics, pills, nebulizer and vest treatments. Like clockwork on the dot, nurses and respiratory therapists glide in and out of Rima's room. Some without even a hush of a whisper because Rima is trying to sleep, some with a blatant disregard to obvious signs of a sleeping being.

Imagine not having any real privacy for the last nine and a half weeks of your life. Having "strangers" come into your room in the middle of the night and poking you or scanning your wristband. Imagine having to deal with respiratory therapy waking your sleepy ass up every day at 8:30am and having to wake up and be "up" for 30 minutes and then try to go back to bed after. Imagine house cleaning and lab draws trying to come in your room sometimes at 6am or 7am or 9am right when you lay down for sleep again.

Image someone waking you up at 7am to try to get your god damn blood pressure. Picture people flipping the lights on at 5am, 6am, and 7am, not reading the sign put up for that very purpose. Imagine staying up till midnight or 12:30am or even past one am for a fifth round of respiratory therapy even if your exhausted or awake. Image this happening EVERY DAY for nine and a half weeks. Got it? Do you have a mental image of this? What are your feelings? I bet you're frustrated and annoyed? I hope so or else you need to reread the last paragraph again.

Some people still don't know how to read...

These emotions that I have triggered, annoyance, anger, distain and any others are normal ones for the currant circumstance that Rima is living in, are expected. If I were in her shoes I don't know how pleasant I would be with all these constant interruptions and annoyances. I would have for sure either cussed someone out by now or thrown numerous amount of pillows at the door. Rima, is the staffs favorite. I say this not as an opinion but as a fact. Nurses fight over her. I kid you not. It's like she's in some custody divorce battle. It's really impressive. I'm here every day. I've taken about 5 days off total, scattered over the last nine and a half weeks. So, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that I don't know how she does it. I get annoyed with the constant in and out of staff. The total lack of privacy. I find it super annoying. I don't know how she's such a cool cucumber about it.

When Rima is unhooked from IV's which is three times a day. In the early morning, but she's either still sleeping or trying to at that point, that it does not matter. She has two chunks of free time a day that she takes full advantage of. She is free around 1:30-2ish pm to 5pm and then from around 10pm to 12am. During the week Physical Therapy or PT has a standing appointment with her a few times a week, right around an hour or so. She usually goes to their in-house PT room which has some workout equipment or does some stairs with them and walks around a little. After PT or on days when there is no PT we like to either wonder the University campus/hospital or go on adventures.

The Commons hotel has a neat fire place ring

We had lunch at the Commons restaurant on Tuesday, ladies luncheon!

Over the last week Rima has discovered some new hallways and buildings for us to explore. She found some tunnels and skyways that lead to a hotel close by, the Commons. Through the hotel is another tunnel that connects to the Alumni building, which is pretty cool. More buildings for us to explore. But, sometimes it's nice to get out and "feel like a real person", or so Rima says. On Saturday, we did not escape from the hospital grounds. We did not go to a fermentation bar and have a lady date. There was no cheese plate or kombucha involved. There were also no donuts added to the non existent itinerary. But, if such an excursion had taken place, it might have looked like the below pictures, slightly, but with better lighting.

Frank the tank being a creep in the background!

If you have kept up with our blog then you might remember back around Thanksgiving, we introduced our new found friend Geraldine. Geraldine to our surprise is still living down in the radiation therapy department. We moved her in shortly after Turkey day passed and low and behold she's still there! This weekend we decided it was time to give Geraldine some much needed company. No one likes being alone all the time, so naturally we assumed that our ginger bread christmas A-frame home would be a nice addition to her solitary life in the basement. Hey, try spending almost ten weeks in a hospital, after that you can judge us on our sanity. Till then please know that Geraldine is now Queen of Gingerbread town.

After the fact, did we realize we put 2016 down instead of 2017, ooops!

For Rima's last chunk of freedom of the day, she likes to go on walks alone, when I don't sleepover. These walks take her through the old hospital building and through the university campus buildings. She wonders through hallways and tunnels by herself. My vivid imagination would never allow solitary walks at night in creepy dimly lit areas. She has a "no fucks given" attitude about this, very casual. She recently found out through some security people that the Mayo building which is the old hospital is haunted. Specifically the sixth floor. Something about hearing children laugh in the hallways late at night. Another story about desks getting moved around in a room and possible some people dying shortly after they entered a specific room on the sixth floor. She educated me with this newly discovered tales and I informed her I was going to no such floor especially at night. Unless she wanted me to wear adult diapers and cry. She still thinks she will get her way one day or another. Apparently the carts outside the rooms have adult diapers...