The Opinionator

Report on a Hospital Stay

The Rehab Hospital

I have been laid up for almost a month because I have been in the hospital.  Last month I fell and fractured my hip, had it surgically repaired and spent 17 days at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Cape and Islands.  This 14-year-old, 60 bed hospital, located in East Sandwich, is called "RHCI" by most people.  This piece is about my recent stay there.

The hospital is located along the Mid-Cape Highway between exits 2 and 3.  You can get a glimpse of the turrets on the building if you look carefully to your right when heading down Cape on a day when the trees are bare and the visibility is good.  It's like a different universe through those trees.  No one knows it is there except the patients and the staff, and yet it is a large, vibrant and caring community, dedicated to the single goal of helping people get better.  Sometimes it can be difficult to gain admission to the hospital because of the rules of insurance companies and federal programs like Medicare. They set the standard high in search of the neediest patients with realistic chances for recovery. It can feel like getting early admission to Harvard when you get word that RHCI will take you.

There is a rehabilitation point of view which pervades everything that goes on there.  It stresses the importance of therapy and hard work, the value of praise and positive reinforcement and the meaningfulness of tiny steps of progress toward a goal. At RHCI we are taught that "I can't do this" is a forbidden phrase and that all things must be accompanied by kindness and respect.

The staff at the hospital consists of a cadre of doctors, nurses, aides, therapists, coordinators, a psychologist and a social worker. The patients bring a variety of ailments such as broken bones, hip and knee replacements, strokes and head injuries. We were united in our desire to improve our situations. Everyone went by their first name and eye contact, smiles, and greetings were the order of the day when passing in the corridors or working in the gym., which was a beehive of activity daily involving swarms of uniformed therapists individually working with up to a dozen patients. My main goal in therapy was to learn to move about, with the help of a walker and a wheel chair, keeping all my weight off my right leg. This needs to go on until the fracture mends and can be quite involved, entailing getting in and out of bed, dressing  and carrying on the activities of daily living.  Pain management was also an important issue for me.

An alumni of grateful former patients of the hospital has developed over the years and the presence of this group is felt in many ways.  This group is active in reunions and fund raising and gifts from generous patrons are in evidence on corridor walls, patient rooms and common areas. Volunteers are found in the ranks of these people who might provide welcoming contacts, rolling library book carts or religious counseling and the like.  I met a cheerful man one day, some kind of liaison/coordinator, who had been hospitalized there twice and who said his pay was his free lunch.

When the therapists work with you at RHCI they often fasten what is known as a "gait belt" around your waist. This enables them to have something to hold on to if you start to stumble or fall. When you first try things the therapists hover about you, hands poised to rescue you by grabbing your gait belt. I brought my belt home.  It will be a special souvenir of my stay. 

My homecoming was a triumphant return to the scene of my accident. Wheeled into the house by my supportive wife, I gratefully mounted the ramp and platform built the day before by my son. It was a great feeling to roll through the kitchen to my leather living room recliner which felt so soft and comfortable. I still have a way to go with exercises, therapy, X-rays and all. One of my more pleasant tasks was reviewing the 800 unread e-mails sitting in my computer. My full-time job is getting better and I had a wonderful start at RHCI. It's a special asset here on our sandy peninsula and I am thankful that it was there for me.