Looking back over the past weeks I have spent in hospital, I doubt that I would have coped without my iPhone, iPad, and Kindle. Modern hospitals no longer seem to be fitted with TVs or radios, nor do volunteers bring round a library trolly with books and magazines on. Patients are very much thrown back onto their own resources to keep themselves amused during their incarceration. (I can now see why my father always referred to other people in his care home as ‘fellow inmates’!)
Visiting hours are 3.00pm to 8.00pm, which are reasonable compared to when I was younger, when they were often for an hour or possibly two each day. However, not all visitors can stay that length of time (your life may be 'on hold' whilst you are in hospital, but their’s isn’t!), and unless they come in relays, the chance is that the best one can hope for is a couple of hours of time each day with one’s visitors.
The iPhone and iPad have enabled me to have access to the internet and, in particular, my emails, my WhatsApp groups, BBC iPlayer, and YouTube videos. My Kindle has many hundreds of books on it and I can add to my reading list at the press of a button. Without these I would have had to rely on Sue bringing in books and magazines for me to read … which is not something that is always easy to do when your confined to bed.
So, thank God for the iPhone, iPad, and Kindle. They’ve probably saved me from going doolally!
Doolally is the shortened version of the British Army slang noun 'the doolally tap', which loosely meant 'camp fever' and alluded to the apparent madness suffered by bored soldiers waiting to be repatriated to Britain after finishing their tour of duty in India. (Deolali/Doolally was the site of a large British Army transit camp, military prison, and fever hospital.) By the 1940s this had been widely shortened to just 'doolally', and was used as an adjective meaning mad or insane.
A God send indeed Bob! As a fulltime parent carer and one who is classed as socially isolated, Google and Blogs in particular are my window to the World and certainly help me keep in touch with what's going out in the gaming universe. Without it I too might have gone doolally!
ReplyDeleteI spent a long weekend in hospital a few years ago and came to realise the internet revolution in a different way , you are not cut off from friends and family anymore and all that entertainment at your fingertips - you would struggle to manage hospitalisation without the internet nowadays - hope your out soon ! , Tony
ReplyDeleteBe glad you are not in my local hospital, Bob. They seem to have built a Faraday cage into the walls, so that even a minimal 2G/3G signal is hard to find.
ReplyDeleteHope you get home soon, with time off for good behaviour.
My everything is an iPhone
ReplyDeleteLooks like your spirits are high despite lack of sleep and a long road to recovery. Kindle and their cousins are great devices for situations like yours. I always bring one along while traveling for the very same reasons you've listed. They're nice for "unplugging" as well. I like to limit my internet exposure while I'm away from home, usually only browsing in the evening before bed.
ReplyDeleteHi Bob
ReplyDeleteYou would imagine that "old timers" like us could manage without the internet, but I found out this past month just how much we have come to rely on it. We had two days without any internet at all, followed by four weeks with very limited access. Here in Spain our radio and TV, as well as our PC and IPads all rely on the internet, so two days without seemed a lifetime. I knew that we were very reliant on it, but did not realise how alien the house would seem without radio 2 and radio 4, or how much we would miss the UK news and our daily fix of UKTV.
It is interesting that there is, apparently, no more need for the hospital library lady.
Glad to see that you are managing so well in difficult circumstances, hope that you are home soon and able to resume a level of normal life
regards
Paul
As you have been incarcerated with your fellow inmates maybe stir crazy would be a more apt phrase! :-) Best of luck when you return home.
ReplyDeleteFred.