You Know You've Been in the Hospital Too Long When...

• ...you have to take your mylar balloons to the hospital gift shop to get re-inflated.
• ...you wake up disoriented when you do get a chance to sleep at home in your own bed.
• ...you have more food in your hospital room refrigerator than you do in your refrigerator at home (ok, so this might not be quite true for us now since my mom got us pretty well stocked before she left, but it was true before my parents came to help!)
• ...you've memorized the cable TV channels and show schedules even though you've never had cable at home before.
• ...the cable TV shows you've been watching are starting to be repeats.
• ...the housekeeping workers know you by name.
• ...you can't comb the tangles out of your child's hair because it's grown so long and is in desperate need of a haircut!
• ...you can cancel your home medical supply order for a full month at a time.
• ...you start to worry that your in-home nursing agency is going to reassign your favorite nurse to a new patient.
• ...the batteries in your child's toys at the hospital start dying.
• ...your social worker calls you directly at the hospital before trying you at home first.
• ... you have to start canceling other doctor appointments and give those doctor offices your hospital phone number to reach you at.
• ...you start wanting to train the nursing students yourself on how to give meds and run the IV and feeding pumps.
• ...you finally get your favorite nurse again from your first week in the hospital and she feels like a long lost friend.
• ...you've finally met all 5 of the infectious diseases doctors who each take turns doing rounds for a week at a time.
• ...you start making decorations for your hospital room and even bring your own lamp from home, just to make things more cozy.
• ...you feel homesick for your first hospital room when they make you move to a new room.
• ... you start checking out other empty rooms on the floor to see which ones you like in case they make you change rooms again.

*Just in case you think we are joking about some of these, I kid you not--they are all true for us!  I'm sure we'll come up with even more as time goes on!