One of the most satisfying things that happened in the hospital:
We’d checked in on Tuesday night. I was okay with skipping showering on Wednesday. But by Thursday, especially after all that adrenaline, I was feeling a little grim. I’d brought fresh socks/shirts/underwear, and I had deodorant and a toothbrush; I’d done what I could with the public-restroom-style brown paper towels and the antibacterial handsoap. But still. My hair was feeling bad, and I’d been sleeping in my clothes, and I only had one pair of pants, and my cardigan was already due for a laundering when I grabbed it on Tuesday. I was feeling stale and wilted, and my face looked so tired and stressed and dry in the fluorescent hospital lighting.
I looked online and found that there was a familiar chain drugstore just a couple of blocks from the hospital. I made one extremely brief attempt to get there (i.e., walking out the doors, looking around, realizing I didn’t even know whether to go left or right or what), then came right back inside and asked the Info Desk, and she was extremely nice and pointed me to a completely different exit door. I walked along the sidewalk, feeling the weird intimidated exhilaration of a town-mouse in a city, trying to be all cool about it, like “Yeah, here I am, in a city, no big, using crosswalks with crossing lights like it’s totally normal for me, stepping around piles of unknown substances like a boss!” Also feeling kind of oily and grubby, but better out in the fresh(ish) air and sunshine.
I found the drugstore, and I got a shopping basket, and then I spent some time there in a fugue state of happiness and gratitude, going up and down every aisle in a reverie. That such a store should exist! That it should exist within brief walking distance of the hospital! That I should be able to buy the things there that would make me so much more comfortable and happy! That I should be in the lucky percentage of the population that could do so without facing financial distress! Oh how wonderful to be alive!
Each thing on my hopeful list, I checked it off. A 2-in-1 conditioning shampoo! An inexpensive-but-familiar face lotion that would work well for day and night since no sunscreen was needed! A fabric-freshening spray! A bar of nice-scented soap! A travel-size toothpaste! A hairbrush! A 3-pack of underwear, which they happened to have in my size even though they had only half a dozen packages total! A 3-pack of socks! How lucky, how very lucky, how very very lucky!
I went back to the hospital with my bag of success, feeling as if I had conquered Rome in a peaceful way with no injury, death, or cultural suppression. I took one of the best showers of my life, right up there with the first shower after any of my c-sections; also up there with the first shower I took at home after attending, as a self-conscious and modest teenager, a weeklong camp where, as it turned out, there were cold-water showers, and everyone was undressing publicly where everyone waiting in line could see them do so, so I took one (1) total shower the whole week, and it was the one where I learned that these things were the case, and then no more after that until I returned home and showered for a long, long time.
In terms of cleanliness/joy, I felt like a woman in a shampoo commercial. And the whole hospital room smelled better, because of the soap (Yardley’s English Lavender) and the spray (Downy Wrinkle Release Spray Plus). I spritzed my pants with fabric refresher! I washed a shirt in the sink using the bar soap! It was a transformation, a game-changer. Everything was better after this outing/shower/day.
As satisfying as it was to solve the problem of not having those things with me, I have made a list for the future, in order to avoid having to solve that problem again except when absolutely necessary. Here is my new Packing List for a Hospital Stay with a Child:
Packing List for a Hospital Stay with a Child
laptop & charging cable
phone & charging cable
back-up phone batteries
books
snacks
travel backpack
purse
pillow
laundry bag
deodorant
hairbrush
toothbrush/toothpaste/floss
day/night face lotion
hair gel
hair clips & ponytail holders
medications/vitamins
little pill container
Downy fabric-freshening spray
2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner
bar soap
underwear
socks
shirts
spare pants
pajama pants
CARDIGAN
underwear for child
pants for child
one shirt for child
one pair socks for child
shoes for child
deodorant for child
toothbrush for child
hairbrush for child
child’s phone
books for child
comfy throw blanket for child
That looks like a huge list, but it all fit into a backpack and a tote bag, plus the throw blanket carried separately, and the pillow left behind in the car in case I didn’t need it (I didn’t).
CARDIGAN is all-capsed because the first draft of the list didn’t include it, and then I remembered it and was electrified with horror at the idea of forgetting it. The hospital was so chilly, I wore the cardigan around the clock and wished for a warmer(/cleaner) one.
My travel backpack is the one I use when Edward and I go to his Remicade appointments. It has in it a warm hat for him (he sometimes gets chilly during infusions), and an umbrella, and a bunch of ketchup packets (he usually prefers more ketchup than is provided with his hospital meal). Carrying some of my stuff on my back makes me feel less like I’m arriving with a huge pile of luggage.
“Little pill container” refers to the a pillbox I keep in my purse with a couple doses each of ibuprofen, benadryl, decongestants, caffeine, prescription tranquilizers.
It’s “one pair socks for child” because the hospital provides non-slip socks for the patient. So the child only needs a regular pair of socks for the trip home, as well as one pair of pants and one shirt for the trip home, because they wear a hospital johnny the rest of the time; or they might want another pair of pants to wear with the johnny, as Edward did. And you would think “shoes for child” would go without saying, since the child would be WEARING shoes, but I added it because I came very close to dropping Edward’s shoes off at home when I stopped there between ER and children’s hospital: he took them off in the ER, and then they took him by ambulance from there so he hadn’t put them back on, and I’d scooped them up with our other things.
“Comfy throw blanket” isn’t necessary if you’re traveling light, and neither was pillow as it turned out, but I like to think of those things and consider if I want them or not; and Edward has a favorite throw blanket he uses all the time at home, which turned out to be really nice to have with us.
I love these posts and have referred to them in more than one occasion. I’ve been reading swistle since before I had kids and now I have 2 (and I’m done). I don’t have a mum so I consider these posts to be essential replacements for mum advice!!
Anyway, what is a Johnny? Because here in the UK it’s a condom 😂😂😂
So glad to hear that things are on the up and up now.
Ha ha, oh dear! Here a johnny is the word for the hospital gown/smock thing the patients wear.
Ah I thought that was probably the case, but then I wondered if it might be sort like a onesy as in “long johns” (are long johns a thing in the US?!)
When my daughter was almost 1, she was admitted for a (surprise/sudden) 4-day hospital stay. I drove there straight from work, and stayed with her the whole time. I remember so many of these feelings. When my mom was able to come on day 3, I went outside for the first time and was genuinely disoriented by the sunshine and traffic. It may say something about me that I did not purchase soap first – rather, I found the closest coffee shop and straight-up guzzled a vanilla latte.
I relate so much to this, after numerous pediatrician-to-ER-to-admitted sessions with my oldest. Your list is excellent but if I may, I’d recommend adding chapstick. Hospital air is so dry and I, at least, am the sort of person who fixates on dry lips if I don’t have any balm for them. Ditto for the sick kid….I feel better being able to give them real chapstick than having to request Vaseline that probably costs the insurance company $50.
Oh my gosh, yes! Chapstick! It was so awful to spend the night fixated on my lips and how dry they were. I didn’t even have my purse when I had my surprise hospital stay with my son. I was so excited the next day when I could slip home and get some.
Oh YES. The only reason it isn’t on my list is that I have one in my pocket at all times, and several more in my purse, and another in the travel backpack! Chapsticks is ESSENTIAL.
I have to ask–how is Edward? I’ve been worrying about him, and hope he has reached the stage of recovery in which the crankiness is related to boredom rather than to feeling terrible.
We had a follow-up appointment today, and it looks like there might be a second surgery. We had a CAT scan, and the surgeon is going to call us tomorrow to let us know how things look. But he is in mostly good spirits, and feeling pretty well overall.
“I went back to the hospital with my bag of success, feeling as if I had conquered Rome in a peaceful way with no injury, death, or cultural suppression.” Hahahaha.
Also, can you please provide details about your travel backpack? Is it a regular backpack, or something special? I am on a quest for the perfect backpack that is functional and cute.
It is a regular backpack, except it was exactly what I wanted, and it was 70% off at Target, and I keep it in the front hall closet for travel. It’s army green, and it has a laptop compartment, and it’s comfy—but really, it’s a normal backback.
This was a deeply satisfying read. I love lists. I love feeling prepared. And I love your shower success! When my twins were born, we spent three weeks living in the hospital with them. I remembered when they moved us to a room without a shower and I sobbed. Turns out there was a weird hallway shower bathroom we could use, but the realization that our room had no shower was too much for me at that moment.
Gosh, I’ve been off line for a while and returned to this. Hope everything is going well by now. May I add to the list, comfy shoes, if that’s not what you go to the hospital in? I went straight from work when my husband and son were seriously injured in an auto accident, and didn’t leave the hospital for 8 days. My feet hurt so much in my dress-for-success shoes, then they started swelling, and then my heels cracked! Finally a nurse noticed and got me some of that fashion-risk sock type footies they give patients. They were heaven!
My step-father has been in the hospital for 3 months recovering from Guillain-Barré Syndrome, and my mom whole-heartedly supports your list for your son. Comfy soft, non-irritating clothes, his own products, phone charger, etc.
My mom slept in the hospital the first few nights, but went home to sleep from then on. She says she wishes she’d had your bag with her.
Wow! My husband recently had this, about six months ago! What a crazy illness and horrible experience it has been.
What caused your stepdad’s? How is his prognosis? What treatment have 5ey been doing for him? Haha sorry for the questions, I’ve just really never met other people how have gone through this!
I have a similar but very truncated list for ER trips with the kids. My purse in summer / jacket pockets in winter always has my phone, keys, wallet, lactaid, advil, and lipbalm, but whenever there’s a clear need for the ER that isn’t an immediate life-threatening emergency I always take 2 minutes to grab a bag and stuff into it:
– iPad
– charging cords for my iPad and phone
– a couple of Clif bars (these are essentially energy bars, which are a bit more substantial than cereal or granola bars)
– water bottles for both of us (filled if I have time, otherwise I fill them in the waiting room fountain at the hospital)
– hoodie for me and kid
– a bucket for the kid to barf in in the car if we’re going for that sort of reason
I make sure I’m wearing comfy clothes.
This assumes a standard time at the hospital of about 6 hours. If more than about 10 elapse I might text my husband for more of the stuff that made it onto your long-term list. It’s easier for us because we live only about 15 minutes from the nearest hospital, and 30 from the Children’s Hospital.
I must know about snacks. Are hospital snacks like traveling snacks? What snacks did you enjoy most? How did you handle meals in general?
I’d say I most enjoyed the Pringles, the Junior Mints, and the snack cakes—so yes, same as traveling snacks, as it turned out! The hospital we were at had a cafeteria and also a few cafeteria-style restaurants with things like salads and sandwiches and pizza and yogurt and fruit cups and pastries and soups and coffee, so I had fun going and getting all my meals there.
I had dinner at the Ronald McDonald room st the hospital. I felt guilty- I don’t need free meals/ I donate! But it was a good meal, I appreciated it and I will remember it. My son enjoyed the Mac and cheese, fruit snacks and mozzarella sticks fir every meal. I like cafeterias, but only one meal met the intersection between “ fresh food” and, “ old pizza under the warming lights”.
We had a scare when I was pregnant with either my 5th or 6th baby. Thought I might have a blood clot in my leg. I went to the ER alone to get checked out. Coach stayed home with the gang. I was frantically working to update my photo albums before the baby came (that’s what I always did- update albums before delivery and now the albums have been ignored for the better part of 11 years). Anyway I grabbed my album and the next stack of photos and arrived at the ER ready to work while I waited. The nurses thought I was nuts and laughed at me but I hate wasting time. I like your list. Hope I never need it.
I am at the hospital now with my mom and brought a kindle but don’t have the attention span right now to read. I also brought my laptop and I’m tagging my photos in the apple storage folder. I need to be busy as well and it’s fairly mindless.
The only thing I would add is something generic for feminine products. Nature loves her little surprises.
Ugghh. That happened to me last fall when my son had a hospital stay. First night there and surprise!!! The nurse had some supplies that seemed like they were from 1986. 😕
I would also add a travel cup or water bottle. I hated using styrofoam which is all the hospital had and always bring a cup to use or water bottle to refill.
I’m catching up on your blog, so forgive the comment on a months-old post. This list is great for a last-minute hospital stay for patients, too. For myself, I would add a long lightweight scarf, since often I get chilled around my neck and shoulders, but don’t want a full extra layer to struggle with in beds/gurneys/etc. A scarf I could cuddle up in /drape over me shawl-style/etc. was a lifesaver. But I would hold off on any scented products (like fabric spray) since hospitals are full of sick folks who can get easily triggered by scented products (says someone who gets easily triggered by scented products).