Night At The Hospital

I recently spent a night as a visitor as a hospital.  This was my first hospital overnight since I was an inpatient at one over 12 years ago.

Outside of selected complimentary beverages, there are very few good things, if any, about spending the night at the hospital.  However, there are a number of bad things, beyond just being around sick people:

1) The random noises that interrupt the quiet.  Forget about a sound night's sleep.  If it isn't the beeping of the various medical devices, it's the nurses coming in every couple of hours to check vital signs or give medication.

2) The light pollution.  No matter how hard you may try to keep the light low, the above-mentioned nurses are going to walk in from the well-lit hallway.  Sometimes, if they have something to do, they're even going to turn the lights on in the room.

3) The antiseptic aroma.  Combine hand sanitizer, alcohol pads, and every other purification or cleaning agent known to man, and you might have a basic idea of what it smells like the entire time.  Not awful, but not potpourri either.

So in summary, a night at the hospital is going to be a benevolent assault on the senses of hearing, seeing, and smelling.  This is the sacrifice made to help get people well.