Ear Splitting Beeping Machine - Courtesy of Your Caring Hospital



So, you find yourself in a hospital, where the doctors have assured you that your only job is to rest and recover. You nod, feeling reassured. Then they leave, and that's when the machines start talking.

By "talking," of course, I mean they begin an ear-piercing, soul-crushing serenade of beeps, boops, and blares that could make a rock concert seem like a meditation retreat.

The star of the show is the Heart Monitor, which is supposed to track your heartbeat. It begins with a polite *beep-beep*, as if it's checking to see if you're still alive. "Hey, you okay there? Still ticking? Great!" But the moment you start drifting into that sweet, sweet slumber, it shifts into *BEEP-BEEP-BEEP* mode, like it just remembered that it left the stove on at home.

Then there's the IV Pump. This is the gadget that's supposed to drip life-saving fluids into your body. Unfortunately, it's more concerned with drip-dripping pure annoyance into your brain. Every time it runs low, it lets out a noise that can only be described as what you'd get if a cat learned how to play a car alarm. It seems to say, "Hey! You! Yeah, you with the eyelids! You're not sleeping on my watch!"

The Blood Pressure Cuff gets in on the action too. Every 15 minutes, it inflates with a sound like Darth Vader in a wind tunnel, squeezing your arm with the enthusiasm of a boa constrictor that hasn't had lunch. And just when you think it's done, it lets out a long, drawn-out hiss, as if it's disappointed you didn't enjoy the experience.

Oh, and let's not forget the Bed Alarm. If you so much as twitch a toe outside the boundaries of your bed, it shrieks as if you've just broken out of maximum-security prison. It's reassuring to know that your bed is so concerned about your well-being that it will report you to the authorities the moment you try to stretch.

Then there's the mysterious sound that comes from a machine you've never actually seen. It's the *boop-beep-bloop-bop* that seems to serve no medical purpose other than to remind you that technology is complicated and probably out to get you.

By now, you've given up on sleep. You're sitting up in bed, wide awake, contemplating how anyone in this place ever heals. As the chorus of beeps crescendos, you begin to wonder if this is all part of a secret psychological experiment. Maybe they're testing the limits of human endurance—how many hours can a person go without sleep before they start hallucinating that the IV Pump is whispering their darkest secrets?

Finally, the nurse comes in, and you consider asking her to turn off just one of these machines. But then you see the look on her face—the one that says, "Oh honey, these machines are the only things keeping you alive, and also, I'm not getting paid enough to negotiate with the Heart Monitor."

So you smile politely, nodding as she tells you to get some rest, because nothing says "relaxation" like a relentless symphony of hospital gadgetry. As she leaves, you settle back in bed, resigned to the fact that the only prescription you're going to get tonight is an earful of technology's greatest hits.

And then, just as you close your eyes and start to drift off...*BEEP-BEEP-BEEP*.

---

Now, doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy about your next hospital visit?

--
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Phil Shapiro, pshapiro@his.com

He/Him/His

"Wisdom begins with wonder." - Socrates
"Learning happens thru gentleness."
"We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options."  David Suzuki

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