How to be a good hospital visiter

[SnicklefritzG]

[QUOTE=Mukluk;8098099]
So for those of you who have been in the hospital for multiple days for surgery & post surgery can you offer advice on how to be a good visiter- anything you want your visiter to bring? Thanks in advance.[/QUOTE]

Speaking from experience, one important thing is to be sensitive not just to the person you are visiting, but to others in the room. Sometimes a short, quiet visit might be the best one depending on what is going on with the others in the room.

There was a period of time when I was visiting my sister’s baby in the PICU almost daily because the hospital happened to be close to where I lived, but was a much longer distance for my sister. So I covered for her on days she was swamped with her other kids. I mostly was there for support, brought my laptop to do work on and interact with the baby when they were awake. I didn’t make a lot of noise though because too much would upset the others in the PICU. In fact, one kids’ parents got transferred to a different room because of how many people they brought in, how much talking they did that upset the babies in the PICU to the point their O2 alarms would go off. That’s an extreme example, but i mentioned it just to suggest that you may want to find out what the rules and norms are for whatever unit the person is in who you are visiting.

[Drive_NJ]

some of the things I would have LOVED but the timing of who I told and who visited next was off

lip balm
decent hand cream
sugarfree hard candies/throat lozenges to suck on - its terribly dry in hospitals

tea or coffee

the daily paper
magazines I could leaf thru then throw away or pass along
good books - not heavy (physically) or thick or too intense

it so much depends on how long anyone is in for and how coherent they are whether visitors are a good thing
but take cues on the conversation and leave when the inmate it tired

I was in after chemo and needed a scarf for should have been no hair head - it also would have been nice if someone visiting had brought scissors to cut off the straggling hair

cards - the funnier the better

[Mukluk]

Update. Surgery was April 15 (L5-S1 fusion). My brother and I were present before and after surgery. My brother also showed up the next day as did I. It all seemed to work out well. Mr. Mukluk was released the 18th. He has been making amazing progress- from needing a walker when he just got out to…… he just did a one mile walk with hiking poles today (just two weeks later)!!! I am very proud of him. We’ll wait a good year before he gets on a horse but things are looking pretty good. Before surgery he could never have walked a mile.

[Easysgirl]

I agree you should make sure the patient wants a visit. After I had an emergency surgery to have an ovarian cyst removed, I did not, DID NOT want any visitors except for my brother, who I made drive to the hospital from his home. I couldn’t, after all, let people see me with my hair messed up! Keep in mind that this was when I was a confused, hormonal thirteen-year-old. Not everybody is the same.

[Carol_Ames]

I would have loved a first:) hand report on my horses, as well as my cats:), on a separate farm in Middleburg; a cell phone pic or two