Bryce
How do you pack for a month in the hospital? Do you bring clothes? Do they give you clothes? If they give you clothes does insurance pay for them? Are clothes included in the cost of the room? How much do you think hospital underwear costs? How many pairs of hospital underwear do I need to buy to hit my deductible? If I bring clothes how much do I need? How do I get clean clothes if I don’t bring enough? Do they have a washer/dryer? Is the washer/dryer free or do I need coins? What about detergent? I’ve only been in a hospital once in my adult life and that was to briefly visit my grandpa; I didn’t think to look for washing machines.
Soliciting Feedback
Fortunately, but unfortunate its members, there’s a small but active r/leukemia subreddit. I’d been lurking in the subreddit a couple weeks while waiting for the diagnosis and found a similar chain about extended duration hospital stays posted a year earlier. Items to bring included comfortable, warm clothes, slippers, eye mask, white noise machine, an extension cord, blanket, pillow, any decorations to remind you of home, toiletries, a gaming system, and laptop/iPad.
I consolidated everyone’s input and created a list while Mary Beth went to work gathering and packing. For further due diligence, I posted my list in the group and asked if I was missing anything or should consider in a post covid world. This is when packing became terrifying. U/Tobiahi recommended, “steroids will make you swell. Suuuper loose clothing… if you’re bringing boxers, you’re going to want briefs. Perhaps TMI, your testicles may swell and need the extra support.” …..swelling testicles wasn’t a consideration when bought 18 pairs of boxer briefs from Walmart. Guess I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Another user noted, “I got super constipated from induction and ripped my butt hard which lead to months of extreme pain while pooping. Watch out for this.” If you were to ask me my top 100 concerns going into induction, ripped butt wouldn’t have made this list; it’s now in the top five. We won a squatty potty at last year’s Christmas party (thanks Matt), and it’s now coming to the hospital with me.
So what am I packing?
- 24 pairs of underwear
- 20 pairs of socks
- 5 pairs of sweats/lounging pants
- 12 t shirts
- 3 sweaters
- 3 pairs of shorts
- ipad
- Roku (not sure if this is needed bc of the iPad)
- headphones
- extension cord
- blanket
- pillow
- eye mask
- slippers
- Squatty Potty (ripped butt mitigation strategy)
- n95 masks (thanks uncle Brian)
- Gus pillow
- a couple books and note pads
At some point I’m going to run out of clean clothes, but I‘ll have a couple weeks under by belt and hope to have a solution by then or I’ll ask my mom to do a couple loads of laundry for me. It’ll be like the old days before I had to do my own laundry.
