I spent four days in hospital.
When I wasn’t being poked, prodded, or unplugged, I wrote things down.
This isn’t just about hospital life—it’s about routine, patience, and the quiet power of biscuits.
Hospital isn’t what I expected. It’s oddly structured—like a badly run boarding school or an extremely laid-back cult.
Waking Up
Wake-up is at 7am. No alarms needed. The lights just flick on and all the curtains whoosh open at once, like someone hit “reset humans” on a big remote. It’s a rude awakening, but mercifully, no one expects you to do anything beyond exist.
Then come the vital signs: blood pressure, heart rate, temperature. Every single time, I’d trigger the alarm for low heart rate. “Are you really fit?” they’d ask. “Yes, I’m a cyclist,” I’d say, again. Like some kind of extremely chill emergency.
Next, it’s the vampires. Sorry—phlebotomists. They always appear smiling, holding the tiniest needle and saying “Just a small scratch.” Because “This is going to hurt” doesn’t test well in focus groups.
One morning, they took my blood pressure while taking blood. Surely that messes with the reading? Although… I suppose withdrawing blood is one way to lower blood pressure. Each took an arm. On the plus side, the feeling of one arm being crushed did distract from the stabbing in the other.
If you don’t feel like getting out of bed, you can have a bed bath. Sounds luxurious, right? Like maybe there’s bubbles involved? No. It’s just a flannel. A lukewarm, no-nonsense flannel. Technically cleansing. Spiritually humbling.
Then comes the bed sheet swap, which is honestly a kind of magic trick. They can change the sheets while you’re still in them. It’s like the tablecloth trick—except the cutlery is a human being, and the magician replaces the cloth mid-yank. I don’t know how they do it. Probably witchcraft.
Breakfast
Then: breakfast. You get a choice between toast, cereal, or both if you’re feeling reckless. And tea. Endless tea. As much tea as your mortal vessel can contain.
The woman who brought breakfast was glorious. Full of sass, zero tolerance for nonsense. You just knew she ran that ward.
After breakfast comes the doctor’s rounds.
They always seem to know everything—like they’ve been quietly observing you through a two-way mirror. “You’re a cyclist, right?” “Still glued to that phone?” How do they know? Is there a folder that says: Patient 3 – mild sarcasm, low pulse, high screen time?
They give updates. Vague, carefully hopeful updates. “We’ll see how you’re doing later.” “Might be able to go home tomorrow.” Every day, it’s a solid maybe.
They talk like Scottish weather forecasters: “Sunshine with a chance of rain.” The medical equivalent of hedging bets. You learn not to get your hopes up, but you do anyway. Because what if today’s the day?
That’s the highlight of the day really, and it’s only 9.30am.
Morning
After that, you can do what you like. Stare out the window. Stare at the ceiling. Stare at the wall. So much choice. So much time.
I ended up writing blog posts. That’s why I was on my phone. Turns out that hospital is a great environment to write, because there is nothing else to do.
Then there is elevenses. More tea, more sass, and biscuits. Lots of biscuits. I wasn’t bored but I did rate and review each type of biscuit.
Obviously I documented my findings. Science demands it.
The Great Hospital Biscuit Review 🍪
Because when you have nothing to do but write and snack, biscuits become serious business.
Bourbons – 3/10
I have no idea why these things exist or what they’re supposed to be.
They taste like chocolate but… not chocolate.
More like if you described “chocolate” to an alien and let them improvise.
Also, why are they called bourbons? No clue.
I still ate them though. Obviously.
Custard Creams – 7/10
The Sherman tank of biscuits. Indestructible. Ubiquitous. Unstoppable.
I’m pretty sure after the apocalypse, it’ll just be cockroaches and packets of custard creams.
Are they custard? No. Cream? Also no. Moreish? Absolutely.
I eat these even outside of hospital. No shame.
Fruit Shortcake – 10/10
The Rolls-Royce of hospital biscuits.
I don’t normally eat fruit shortcake because I’m simply not posh enough.
But in hospital? It’s pure luxury.
Crisp shortbread, tiny hits of chewy fruit… I pretend it’s healthy if I ignore all the sugar and butter.
Biscuit royalty.
Afternoons
Lunch is kind of like a fancy restaurant—except you can eat in bed and everyone’s in pyjamas. There’s a range of choices, and you just point at what you want while they mark it down like you’re on a very low-stakes episode of MasterChef.
Lasagne was good. Roast on Sunday. Honestly? The food surprised me—it was pretty decent. Though dessert was usually disappointing. Vague pudding. Custard that tasted like it had been emotionally repressed.
Afternoons crawl by.
More tea? More biscuits? Yes, obviously. Vitals get checked every few hours like clockwork. Some patients get visitors who smuggle in contraband KitKats (the Lamborghini Countach of biscuits—sleek, iconic, and perfection in wafer form. 13/10).
Sounds
Other patients snore, shout, or blast TikToks at full volume like we all signed up to be extras in their personal soap opera.
Noise-cancelling headphones: the true hospital MVP. I typed away in my own little cocoon of calm.
Some people are bedbound. That means everything—yes, everything—happens in bed. You get used to it. Noise-cancelling headphones to the rescue, again.
Privacy is mostly theoretical. Curtains don’t block sound. If you wanted to, you could hear everything. Once I accidentally listened to a full conversation about a guy’s leg amputation. I wish I’d chosen music instead.
I was hooked up to a heart monitor, electrodes stuck to my chest like weird medical barnacles. A plug dangled from under my T-shirt—every time I got back into bed, the nurses would plug me in like I was a Tesla. The machine, bolted to the wall, tracked my heart rate around the clock.
Problem was: my heart rate is low. Like, concerningly low by hospital standards. So the alarm kept going off. Constantly. A shrill, relentless loop of concern. The nurses would come over, silence it, and moments later—beep beep beep—it started again. I was basically a human car alarm. The kind everyone pretends not to hear.
Evening
Dinner is the same setup as lunch, just different food. There’s a bit of a Groundhog Day feeling in hospital—all the days start to melt together. I didn’t realise how exhausting lying in a bed could be.
One day I asked if I could go for a walk. They let me go out onto the concourse with my IV lines flopping around. The nurse said, “Please come back!” I think she thought I was going to do a runner.
Evenings are like afternoons, but with less tea. I guess they don’t want people bouncing off the walls on a late sugar high. By 9pm, I’d had enough of the day. I just wanted to skip to the next one.
They turned the lights off and switched us into night mode. Everyone tried to fall asleep, but it wasn’t easy. One person would snore—loudly—and keep the others awake. Machines beeped. Alarms sounded (some of them mine). Nurses whispered as they moved between beds, doing checks, changing drips, waking patients gently but relentlessly. It wasn’t exactly peaceful.
Most people didn’t really sleep. Not properly.
Me? Noise-cancelling headphones to the rescue—again. I put on music, stared out the window at the stars, and drifted off.
What Helped (aka: How Not to Lose Your Mind in Hospital)
If you’re heading into hospital and want to stay vaguely sane, here are the things that made a real difference for me:
- Noise-cancelling headphones — Absolute MVP. Drown out snoring, beeping, existential dread.
- In-ear headphones — Comfier for sleeping. Pop them in, queue up something soothing, drift off.
- Charger + long cable — You’ll be using your phone a lot. Bring a long one so you can scroll in bed like a king.
- Battery bank — So you don’t have to beg the wall sockets for mercy.
- Comfy clothes — Hospital gowns are breezy in all the wrong ways. Bring stuff that feels like a hug.
- Toiletries — Toothbrush, toothpaste, shower gel. They’ll give you some if you ask, but it’s… functional.
- Contraband snacks — Hospital food was fine, but nothing lifts the spirit like a sneaky KitKat. It’s not just a snack. It’s a taste of home.
No one wants to be in hospital.
But once you’re there, it’s part structure, part surrender.
The staff give you care, calm, routine.
The rest? That’s yours.
You can shout. Or rest. Scroll TikTok or write a blog.
It won’t be glamorous—but it can be bearable.
Even oddly gentle.
Bring headphones. Let go a little.
And whatever you do:
Drink the tea.
Eat the biscuits.
Until they invent an IV Fruit Shortcake drip.
Or dissolve a KitKat in saline.
Davide la Locomotive 
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