how often do you visit loved ones that are in the hospital? (father, husband)
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"Just livin' day by day"
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I feel the need to visit everyday since being in the hospital is one of the last places anyone wants to be in. Thankfully for him, its only temporary. So I want to be there for support & company.
I've never understood the compulsion people have to visit people in a hospital, especially non-relatives, but also loved ones at times. I look and feel terrible if I'm a patient in a hospital. I'm sick or recovering from surgery - not pleasant. (in the past) I do not want visitors very much and not every day. When non-relatives visit, I think it is sometimes just being overly nosey.
And the way people stay with a loved one or a relative all day and late into the night is way over-done. Depending on the reason one is in the hospital.....
Just because it's the last place anyone wants to be, I do not see the logic for visiting every day and staying all day and all night - or extremely long periods or even every day. And you wouldn't normally be staying extremely long periods and daily if you were just visiting them in their own home or living with them. (not a dying situation)
The patients often feel terrible! And are embarrassed by some things surround the illness, and feel that they look terrible.
Last edited by matisse12; 06-08-2017 at 08:07 PM..
I have a brother who lived in a hospital for several years and the answer is as little as possible. I still did it a few times a week out of guilt but I hated it. One time his 17 year old roommate died in the room while I was visiting him.
Looking back I'm not sure I would choose to visit him as much. He wasn't (and still isn't) very conscious anyway. Every time I left the hospital I just felt worse about everything. Then again maybe I would still visit just for my mom's sake. I know she would have been hurt to know I wasn't visiting. There's always some relative that guilt trips the others, right? My mom loves visiting people in hospitals, she likes to feel needed I guess.
My other brother won't go into a hospital at all and I don't blame him. I wouldn't expect him to visit me if I were in the hospital, and it wouldn't bother me if he didn't visit either. I am understanding because I hate hospitals, too.
I feel the need to visit everyday since being in the hospital is one of the last places anyone wants to be in. Thankfully for him, its only temporary. So I want to be there for support & company.
That depends on the situation. When it was my mother having a quadruple bypass, I was there every day from the time we brought her in to the ER until she went to post-surgical rehab. She was 86. Wasn't gonna say, "Bye, Ma, see you in a few days--maybe, maybe not."
When I had the stroke Mr. CSD was there day and night until I was stabilized and moved into the rehabilitation facility.
Then he would come for supper around 6:00pm or so and he, I and my roommate would watch the baseball game until it was over and he would go home. On the weekend it was the same, we have a home and animals to tend to even though my brother was living with us until I got out of the hospital he also has a home an hour away to tend to so he would go home on Friday morning and return Monday evening or Tuesday afternoon. He came once to the rehabilitation facility,
my Mother came once and one brother in law and sister in law came once in the couple months I was in the hospital and the rehabilitation facility.
I have a good friend who was in the hospital for six weeks struggling with the effects of extensive cancer surgery. She also had major anxiety, and having someone in the room, even if she was dozing, comforted her, and gave her family a chance to grab dinner, lunch or have some "down" time. There were about 12-15 of us, we took 4 hours shifts when we could. That was our choice.
Someone who is in-and-out of the hospital with routine surgery, I will probably text them a couple of times to let them know I'm thinking of them, and then bring dinner by their home when they are released.
When my father was in the hospital after a broke hip, he fell victim to PCOD (post cognitive operative disorder). His kidney issues meant that he wasn't able to throw off the anesthesia easily, plus his incipient Lewys Body dementia came more and more into play . . . this mild-manner, gentle man became verbally abusive, hallucinatory, combative and insistent that he was going to be leaving the hosptial NOW. Having a family member sleeping in the same room calmed him somewhat, and we were able to alert nurses at night when he would suddenly pull out a catheter or IV, etc. It was tough -- but that was my father. No way we were going to leave him alone -- no matter how caring the nurses, or how attentive, someone in that mental state needed close attention.
Largely depends. I had a sister almost die in the hospital years ago because the overworked staff didn't catch that she was internally bleeding to death. Luckily, a family member realized something was wrong and screamed for help.
Since then, we have a rule that no one goes in the hospital without 24-hour-observance by family members unless they are in intensive care or are clearly out of danger.
That said, I don't want ANYONE but very close family members visiting me in the hospital. I feel back enough already.....the last thing I want is a steady stream of visitors when I'm laying there in a lovely backless gown with gummy hair and in bad need of a shower....lol.
I feel the need to visit everyday since being in the hospital is one of the last places anyone wants to be in. Thankfully for him, its only temporary. So I want to be there for support & company.
It depends.
Is this a close family member or a friend?
Is this something serious, potentially fatal, or something minor?
How sick is the patient?
Are you the only visitor or are there many visitors?
Do you stay for five/ten minutes or for hours?
Does the patient want you to visit? Do they want the support & company?
When my husband, with dementia & a TBI, has been in the hospital I have stayed with him as long as 72 straight hours without going home even to shower & change clothes, because he needed an advocate.
When I had recent surgery and was in excruciating, excruciating pain with frequent vomiting and bouts of uncontrollable, messy diarrhea I certainly did NOT want any visitors, except for a very brief daily visit from our adult son and a daily phone call fro my husband (in a nursing home). I would have been very upset if one of my friends, or an extended relative, had come to visit when I was in that rough a shape.
Other than my husband and perhaps my sons, I don't want anyone visiting me in the hospital. I'm sick, sometimes in pain, I look a mess, and the last thing I want is someone in my room who I must interact with.
Well...if I were in the hospital, it would be up to me to let my visitors know I loved them, thank them and get the hell out.
I'm the one who's ill, I get to make the decisions. Everyone I know has held to this standard. Oh, Elizabeth is in the hospital! Yes, she's up to short visits. Or no, don't visit, she's exhausted, but you can send flowers. Oh yes, take a dish to her husband........
Maybe I'm crazy, I don't think this is difficult.
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