Finally, they released me from the hospital.  It was an awful experience.  Just one example:  to check on how my recovery from pneumonia was progressing and my kidney disease recovery was progressing, they drew blood every 3 hours for testing.  

However, I have a really acute PTSD startle response, which is why I live alone.  If you come up on me unannounced, I will not only hit the ceiling, I may also accidentally take you with me.  I hit somebody by accident with my elbow once that way.  I felt horrible about it, because domestic violence, along with rape and combat, is one of the trauma categories that gave me PTSD to start with.

So I told my doctor and nurses I had PTSD and for their sake, please don't sneak in my room to draw blood for testing.  Announce yourselves.  Did they listen?  No.  One of the nurses actually sneaked all the way in to my room to see if she could start taking blood when I was still sleeping.  Can you believe that?  I woke up with her needle in my arm, but managed not to lose it anyway.  Other night she sneaked and tapped me on my shoulder.  That time she did hit my startle response and I shouted and jumped hard.  She laughed and laughed, thinking it was funny.

I'm convinced most people enter the health professions because they want to help people heal.  But I've learned there are a few who like to watch people suffer, it gets them off.  She was one of the latter.

Being in the hospital served its purpose.  My IV antibiotics got my pneumonia to heal faster that oral antibiotics ever could have.  And my IV saline hydrated me faster to get my kidneys going again more quickly that I could have done at home, too.  But triggering my PTSD startled response served no purpose except to entertain a couple of nurses who need to find a new source of entertainment.

I am so glad to be out of that place.  Thanks for your support while I was in there.