My environment and hospital food

 

This tree just shines in dawn light as the sun hits it first thing, and I love seeing it out my window, but can't capture that from the distance.

These are the slim and not so healthy (tiny green shoots!) remains of the lilies of the valley under the big old maple tree.

Hospital notes: 

I had a rather limited view of Asheville downtown looking north. That big window also made my room very cold at times. When I first came in (4 or 5) I finally asked for some way to be warmer. The thermostat had been set at 55  degrees F, and outside was in the 30s and rapidly going down.

Parts of this hospital are quite old, so the houses around it are probably either residences of staff, or perhaps changed into specialty offices of doctors.

Looking over the roof of another wing of the hospital, which has just been refurbished before being bought out by HCA, a conglomerate which the public of  Asheville has complained about since...at least I had a view of the mountains that lie to the north. There are still legal cases being worked about problems of care that don't meet the contracts, and staff shortages publicized frequently, and lots of complaints.

I have to say that all the staff that I met went far beyond just a smile and doing their "defined job."

There was just one guy working with me in the ER was not sure of things, but he admitted that even though it was his first day there, he'd been doing this for 30 years.

There were a couple of places where shortcomings were evident. The housekeeping seemed nil...a very streaked mirror, dust all over bedside table, medical stuff (tubes in baggies) left lying around, sticky places on the floor (before getting socks to wear) and the night nurse had to collect the bags of soiled linens and trash.

I did have some delicious beef stroganoff, without a creamy sauce. The beef was tender and lean, and the best thing I think I ate the whole visit.

My friendly nurse, Becca, was on two shifts while I was there, so she introduced me to an alternative menu that was available for patients who didn't want the standard menu from the "kitchen." We went through making my choices, when I knew I'd be staying over the second night, because I hadn't been there to order for the first day, and missed at least one meal because I needed a test on an empty stomach.

So I chose a delightful sounding breakfast, and a lunch with a hamburger and a baked potato and a salad.

Breakfast- I received scrambled eggs, sausage and little cut up potatoes with lots of seasoning. All unsalted. That's apparently a no-no for a regular diet (not diabetic, not carb reduced, not vegetarian, etc.) There was a tiny packet of salt that I added to the eggs.  Why? Because all I've been able to return to tasting so far are salt and sweet...and unfortunately, pepper. Which I don't like. I scrape if off if I can.  Anyway, my super breakfast didn't come, and I asked the server if I could get what I'd ordered, and she said it would take a while. I just said I'd be happy to eat this. And I did.

When the same thing happened at lunch, I took what came. I later mentioned it to my last nurse (not Becca who helped place my orders that hadn't been fulfilled.) She said that must have been someone new. Because they hadn't been doing that since before covid! That was 5 years ago. I laughed. Poor Becca went to all that trouble for me, and did I ever have my hopes up to have something beside hospital food. I ate my chicken stew with a biscuit made of puff pastry on top.

Here's my dinner, first day.  It had grilled chicken strips with imbedded pepper, so I ate just a couple, and used my tiny salt packet on half the broccoli and half the rice,, which I ate...as well as the pineapple (not sour, but naturally sweet). I drank the sweet tea as well as some non-brand ginger ale, and saved the jello for a snack.

If you notice I can't always come up with a correct simple word, I blame it on brain disfunction, which became even worse while I was there at the hospital.

I did talk to the doctor about that, and that's my next story I'll tell you!

Today's quote:

Observers in the full enjoyment of their bodily senses pity me, but it is because they do not see the golden chamber in my life where I dwell delighted; for, dark as my path may seem to them, I carry a magic light in my heart. Faith, the spiritual strong searchlight, illumines the way, and although sinister doubts lurk in the shadow, I walk unafraid towards the Enchanted Wood where the foliage is always green, where joy abides, where nightingales nest and sing, and where life and death are one ... 
      -  Helen Keller, Midstream, My Later Life.

Today's art:

An Invitation, 2019 by Andrea Kowch

I always get a kick out of these surrealistic/photo realistic interactions between women and animals, and often food. There's a story there which some readers of mine might be able to define...and I can't!

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Today's family album:

Ancestors from my ex-husband's family: his Uncle Carl Heym who served in WWI as a sergeant in the US Army Ordnance Department. He is shown with his mother, Fannie Martin Heym in 1919. Fannie was also mu ex's grandmother, though he never met her.