Hospital Waiting Room Survival Tips

Hospital Waiting Room Survival Tips [movie rentals online]

Hospital waiting rooms are meant to function as temporary oases for an endless stream of confused, worried and often grieving people who need somewhere to pass the time while waiting for news of a loved one's health.

Unfortunately, if you spend much time in a hospital waiting room, the refreshing oasis can quickly come to feel like an endless desert. During the past week I've spent 3 days with my mom in the waiting room of a hospital intensive care unit - and I'm sure we'll be back, since my dad's cancer was just diagnosed. [movie rentals online]

Hopefully several of the coping strategies we quickly learned will be of help to you.

Coping with the People

If you spend much time in a hospital waiting room, you'll encounter more people than you'd probably expected. Doctors and nurses, certainly - but we also dealt with respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, a social worker, a Hospitalist (a doctor who specializes in the care of people in the hospital and who reports on an inpatient's condition to his/her primary care physician) and various staff such as x-ray technicians, cafeteria workers and maintenance staff.

It can be difficult to keep everyone straight, so a pad of paper and a pen is handy, as is a friend or family member to help you remember who said what. Experienced hospital staff understand that this is a stressful, confusing time, so don't be afraid to ask questions if you're not sure who this particular person is and why they are involved with your loved one.

It's also wise to acquaint yourself with the other people who are using the waiting room, especially if you run into the same family several days in a row, as we did. Once we'd exchanged names and brief "so what brings you here" stories, we were able to watch out for each other and tell visitors or nurses where the others were ("That family is here, they just went downstairs to the cafeteria."

Coping with the Facility

All waiting rooms are different, and ours was fairly large - but we didn't find the coffee machine or the message board until the end of our second day there, so it pays to look around. An ice machine was nearby, as were bathrooms, but we wouldn't have known where to look if we hadn't asked.

An annoyance to us was that people left cups and food trays everywhere - so not only did our "oasis" become cluttered, we didn't know if the people who'd been sitting nearby were coming back or had left for good.

Coping with the Passage of Time [movie rentals online]

Having someone to talk to helps enormously when you're stuck in a waiting room for any length of time (which is another reason to get to know any other families waiting with you.) Encourage friends and family members to come by, even if it's just before work or during lunch.

It also helps to have something to do other than read old magazines! So if you can grab your crocheting, or a book to read, or crossword puzzles or playing cards, odds are you'll make use of them. You can also bring your laptop - you may or may not have a network connection available, but can perhaps watch a movie or get some work done while you're waiting.

With any luck, your visits to a hospital waiting room with be few and far between, but these survival tips will help you stay sane during your stay.