Hospitalized

Being hospitalized is not fun.

I never liked being punctured with needles all over, and I certainly don’t appreciate having to lay down all day to “rest”. Sometimes I feel my condition worsen just by staying in a hospital for too long.

However, I just spent this week being hospitalized.

This should explain why I was super late at posting the writing prompt results from last Saturday, and my lack of updates through any of my social media (Twitter, Instagram). And if you guys haven’t guessed it, this is also the reason why this week’s blog post is arbitrarily more raw and unpolished.

For that, I apologize.

---

***

---

I was diagnosed with Urinary Tract Infection (UTI). And for those who are unfamilar with the medical term, This basically means I couldn’t urinate properly; my bladder still procudes urine as usual, but “peeing” in itself became such a painful experience, to the point where I felt like my lower half was burning.

If it was only the pain, I thought I could endure it somehow. But the infection had worsened so much, the urinary tract in itself began to close up and prevent me from urinating. This posed an immediate and grave problem; not being able to pee because my urinary tract was essentially plugged could very well endanger my kidneys.

To put it simply, I was unable to pee starting from Sunday (February 3rd) afternoon up until Monday (February 4th) at around 10AM. It wasn’t until the doctor had performed catheterization that I was finally able to feel relieved. I had held my bladder for around 14 hours, just waiting for the doctor to come, after all.

At this point, I’m afraid I’ve exposed too many medical details about myself, but I feel that I need to explain at least this much to my loyal readers: I wasn’t hospitalized just because of overexhaustion. This is a serious medical condition, and the doctor even recommended me to have a surgery to eliminate the root cause.

Currently, I had been released from the hospital temporarily, most likely due to the unavailability of spare bed. With a catheter plugged, I wasn’t exactly high on their emergency list, either. So I could understand the workings behind the decision to send me home.

However, this means I have to return for further examinations next Tuesday, during which they will remove the catheter and see if the urinary tract had healed with the strong dose of antibiotics they’d given me.

Should I have recovered completely by then, no further action will be needed. Otherwise, they’d need to perform a surgery to ensure my “faulty” urinary tract won’t close up and cause problems again in the foreseeable future.

---

***

---

Now, over the week I spent in the hospital, I had slowly developed this… strong distaste for the environmemt altogether.

Perhaps it was because of being punctured over and over for my intravenous therapy (IV), and getting both my hands swollen to a frightening extent, essentially limiting my movement.

Perhaps it was because of the catheterization, which gives me moderate to major pain every time I move the lower half of my body, or whenever I carelessly nudged the hose abruptly. (I won’t get into the details here, but you guys can search for how catheterization works).

Perhaps it was because of boredom. Having both my hands and my lower body incapacitated means I have very few means of entertainment. Being alone in the room 80% of the time certainly didn’t help, either.

Well, I wasn’t exactly “alone”. I shared the room with 9 other patients, but you get my point.

They turned off the AC during the day, which made the room felt like an oven set into preheat mode. During the night, they set the AC on full blast to freeze us patients to our cryogenic slumber.

And the idle chatter of the nurses never stopped.

Now you see, I wasn’t kidding when I said your condition could worsen by staying too long in a hospital.

Oh, and the food.

The food.

I was never picky about food, but the hospital food in particular was barely edible. I mean, who in their right mind would give a grilled chicken, bone and all, to a patient who couldn’t even use both her hands?

Not to.mention, they were all bland.

I’ve got mountainloads of complaints to make about staying at a hospital, and I’ve barelt scratched the surface. The very thought of having to get a surgery done, and the possibility of staying in the hospital for several additional weeks made me shudder.

Now I get why in my mother language, bahasa Indonesia, “hospital” is translated to “rumah sakit”, which literally means “sick house”.

Yes, it is technically a building to house “sick people”. But even if you’re moderately healthy, stay long enough and you’ll find yourself gettinf “sick” yourself.

Both medically, and figuratively speaking.

---

***

---

With all being said, this whole me being hospitalized drama will sadly affect my ability to post contents. I will still open writing prompt submissions, but who knows how many of them I could work on before my stamina runs out.

And while I would love to blog consistently like nothing happened at all, we both know it is not that easy.

Sitting in itself is painful for me now, so I have to do everything from my phone, while laying horizontally with a measly 30° indentation just to keep my head afloat high enough to drink my meds.

So I won’t be able to promise regular updates, especially here of all places, since blogging takes quite a lot from me. But I will do my best to recover and get back on my game as soon as possible.

Thank you for the loving messages, everyone. I might not be able to reply each and every one of you properly, but know that I read and appreciate every single message you guys had given me.

Wish me speedy recovery, everyone!

---

***

---

I post new contents here every Saturday. This includes writing tips, reviews on writing/reading spots, short stories, poems, personal essays, and more. Keep yourself updated by following me on Twitter and Instagram!

---

Where to find:
Goodreads | Gramedia | Gramedia Digital