Surviving A Hospital Stay

[mushroom]

I had always dreaded finding myself in this position, and it was even worse than I feared because my doc placed me on a cardiac diet to boot! My heart problems were so unrelated to fat and salt, but those things were eliminated, along with the gluten, soy, nightshades, corn, citrus etc.

Needless to say, I had to order off the a la carte menu, which they did at least have

However, the selections on there were so horrible I had to eat the same thing every day. Fruit and scrambled egg for breakfast, no bacon (except when they made a mistake and gave it to me the first morning), no yogurt was offered for breakfast, but I could have all the gluten and sugar I wanted. I finally ordered the cranberry juice whose No.2 content after water was high fructose corn syrup, and put a couple of teaspoons in my water.

For lunch a tossed green salad (read iceberg lettuce mainly, with a sprinkle of red cabbage and a grating of carrot for color. They sent a guaranteed gluten- and soy-free "light" dressing the first day, and the #3 ingredient was soy bean oil . So no dressing - they offered me canola oil and vinegar which I declined, they didn't have any olive oil (too expensive I guess). The only good thing on the menu was sliced turkey, which by the third day I had convinced them to wrap in lettuce, and not put the lettuce with the nightshade tomatoes all over it on the side. And a small pottle of yogurt (very small).

For dinner, the choice expanded to a grilled chicken breast. I ordered the raspberry sherbet, but it didn't come, and the later explanation was that it contained whey and therefore I couldn't have it They obviously have no training in gluten. When I ordered pepper, I got Mrs. Dash. When I ordered butter after I was taken off the cardiac diet, I got margarine made from soy . One morning, I guess in an effort to be kind??? they put some french toast on top of my scrambled egg

So Dh got me some bread from Whole Foods, along with some soy-free Earth Balance, and the staff toasted it on the ward for me. I also had a stash of Lara Bars in my closet and strawberries and raspberries in the ICU fridge (which I shared with the staff to keep on their good side )

Needless to say, with no fat and being tethered to the bed by five different sets of tubing, I got the big C for which they wanted to give me a laxative. I said no way, and as soon as I got off the cardiac diet and got some lubrication from the fats there was no problem.

So I made it home without being glutened or soyed, but no thanks to the kitchen!

[nikki-uk]

SHROOMIE!!!!!!!!

Just glad you made it outta there!!!

T'is a nightmare for a coeliac to have to stay in hospital - and I fear for those who have no family to bring safe foods in

Hope you are feeling better

[Skylark]

I had a friend who was admitted to the hospital in diabetic coma. She is an MD, had patients in crisis, and just got too busy to manage her own type II diabetes properly. Once she woke up and was able to eat the next day, she just about lost her mind when she saw the foods provided on the "diabetic" diet. She is almost totally insulin resistant and mostly manages her diabetes by controlling carb and sugar intake.

There was white toast for breakfast, were mashed potatoes on the lunch tray, Jello dessert, fruit juices with HFCS. When she asked for a snack, they brought peanut butter Nabs. (The ones with all the white flour and sugar.) She finally asked what the heck they were doing and was told not to worry, that they wanted her to go a little high with the blood sugar so they could control it with insulin in the IV. She asked how they expected that to work out in an insulin resistant diabetic and they didn't have much of an answer.

Her husband gave up and went to Whole Foods for some fish and fresh veggies to feed her.

[Jestgar]

I had a friend who was admitted to the hospital in diabetic coma. She is an MD, had patients in crisis, and just got too busy to manage her own type II diabetes properly.

I hope that once she was feeling better you slapped her silly. No one should be too busy to keep themselves from dying.

[lucia]

Yikes! So many diseases (especially in the US) are related to diet, and this is what's on offer? Shouldn't nutritional counseling for a heart attack victim or a celiac patient start right there in the hospital? Wouldn't that make sense?

What is up with hospital food? Does anyone have any guesses? Is it an extension of budgetary decisions? After all, good whole foods are not cheap. Anyone?

[GlutenFreeManna]

It's a sad state of affairs when the place that is supposed to make you well offers mostly food that will make you ill. Glad you are out of there and I hope you won't have to return anytime soon.

[Skylark]

I hope that once she was feeling better you slapped her silly. No one should be too busy to keep themselves from dying.

Oh hell yes. Problem is, the mental impairment from the elevated glucose messed with her clinical judgment.

The bigger thing I had to slap her for was not teaching her very sweet but non-medical husband the signs of trouble. He could have prevented it had he known that her growing fatigue and lethargy was a sign of the diabetes going out of control. Now if she's feeling even a little "off" he sits her down with her glucose meter.

[mushroom]

What is up with hospital food? Does anyone have any guesses? Is it an extension of budgetary decisions? After all, good whole foods are not cheap. Anyone?

Definitely budgetary decisions. But that dietician should be fired. One night when I called in my order I was told they were "all out of vegetables" My god, that should make up the bulk of the menu, but the only actual vegetable on the menu was "vegetable" available for order with dinner (that's what they were all out of) and a spinach salad and I can't eat spinach.

[AlysounRI]

Definitely budgetary decisions. But that dietician should be fired. One night when I called in my order I was told they were "all out of vegetables" My god, that should make up the bulk of the menu, but the only actual vegetable on the menu was "vegetable" available for order with dinner (that's what they were all out of) and a spinach salad and I can't eat spinach.

Regarding budgetary restrictions, remember in the 1980s when President Reagen classified ketchup as a vegetable, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So it would fit into a school lunch program.

It's not an old idea this thing!!

But it's still just as sad.

~Allison

[lucia]

We have an odd healthcare system.

I didn't know that about Reagan's "ketchup as vegetable" program. Depressing ...

[psawyer]

Digressing a bit from the original topic: If having ketchup available in the school cafeteria will keep the students there, instead of crossing the street to get lunch at McDonalds, the concept of "the lesser of two evils" comes to mind.

[Jestgar]

My school was a closed campus - no one allowed to leave. Even if you did leave the only places to eat were a couple mom and pop restaurants where the owners would yell at you if you showed up during school hours (I grew up in a very small town ).

[Mango04]

Regarding budgetary restrictions, remember in the 1980s when President Reagen classified ketchup as a vegetable, grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

So it would fit into a school lunch program.

It's not an old idea this thing!!

But it's still just as sad.

~Allison

I understand they count french fries as a vegetable now too, in order to make it look like they are feeding the kids lots of vegetables.

Mushroom....sorry to hear of your experience.

[masterjen]

I had always dreaded finding myself in this position, and it was even worse than I feared because my doc placed me on a cardiac diet to boot! My heart problems were so unrelated to fat and salt, but those things were eliminated, along with the gluten, soy, nightshades, corn, citrus etc.

Needless to say, I had to order off the a la carte menu, which they did at least have

However, the selections on there were so horrible I had to eat the same thing every day. Fruit and scrambled egg for breakfast, no bacon (except when they made a mistake and gave it to me the first morning), no yogurt was offered for breakfast, but I could have all the gluten and sugar I wanted. I finally ordered the cranberry juice whose No.2 content after water was high fructose corn syrup, and put a couple of teaspoons in my water.

For lunch a tossed green salad (read iceberg lettuce mainly, with a sprinkle of red cabbage and a grating of carrot for color. They sent a guaranteed gluten- and soy-free "light" dressing the first day, and the #3 ingredient was soy bean oil . So no dressing - they offered me canola oil and vinegar which I declined, they didn't have any olive oil (too expensive I guess). The only good thing on the menu was sliced turkey, which by the third day I had convinced them to wrap in lettuce, and not put the lettuce with the nightshade tomatoes all over it on the side. And a small pottle of yogurt (very small).

For dinner, the choice expanded to a grilled chicken breast. I ordered the raspberry sherbet, but it didn't come, and the later explanation was that it contained whey and therefore I couldn't have it They obviously have no training in gluten. When I ordered pepper, I got Mrs. Dash. When I ordered butter after I was taken off the cardiac diet, I got margarine made from soy . One morning, I guess in an effort to be kind??? they put some french toast on top of my scrambled egg

So Dh got me some bread from Whole Foods, along with some soy-free Earth Balance, and the staff toasted it on the ward for me. I also had a stash of Lara Bars in my closet and strawberries and raspberries in the ICU fridge (which I shared with the staff to keep on their good side )

Needless to say, with no fat and being tethered to the bed by five different sets of tubing, I got the big C for which they wanted to give me a laxative. I said no way, and as soon as I got off the cardiac diet and got some lubrication from the fats there was no problem.

So I made it home without being glutened or soyed, but no thanks to the kitchen!

Hi, mushroom;

Glad to hear you survived your hospital experience. When I was cooped up in the hospital for 2 weeks recently, I ended up having to have my mom bring in all my meals. The hospital cooking staff tried, I'm sure, but in my case it appeared they had little to no knowledge of the effects of cross-contamination. The food itself was gluten-free (breakfast was usually an egg with gluten-free toasted rice bread; lunch was canned fruit, broth, gluten-free crackers or non-toasted gluten-free bread, and dinner was plain chicken breast, sweet potatoes or rice and veggies, for ex., which is technically no different from what I've been eating at home) but after getting sick twice in a short period of time on food that was itself gluten-free, I realized cc was likely the problem. It's sad that not even a hospital can properly handle special diets.

[sickchick]

Poor, poor, poor, poor you.

Glad you made it out of there alive HAHAHAHAH

be well!

[i-geek]

It absolutely appalls me how terrible hospital cafeterias are for special diets. I'm a grad student in a medical school, and there are exactly two things I can eat in the attached hospital caf: a veggie-only salad from the salad bar (anything after the veggies is potentially contaminated with croutons) with oil and vinegar, or veggie sushi with the Kari-out packet soy sauce. At least those are fresh. The soups are all off limits as are the pre-packed salads (all have croutons). Everything else is hot bar with breaded foods or pasta/pizza. I cannot imagine an inpatient stay there- I'd have to count on my husband to supply all of my food, and it's a top 10 med school hospital. Pathetic.

[weluvgators]

We have a couple of recent hospital stays that went relatively well.

The first was a six day stay for my 6 yo child. We met with the executive chef and dietician at least once/day, except over the weekend. We did not have any of our food supplies with us, as it was an unexpected admission. We were later able to supply them with some of our own food, and we had access to the refrigerator in our unit (PEDS). They fed myself and my daughter safely, and I felt fantastic when we were discharged. They took extra precautions based on the many conversations that we had. They had a written plan in place with several parties having copies to cover us over the weekend, and the executive chef offered to give me his cell phone number in case I wanted to call him over the weekend. They helped me design good, filling, and nutritious meals for the duration of our stay. They added big "GLUTEN FREE" tags to our trays to help better designate our special need. We were able to use those tags to flag our leftovers that we would store in the unit refrigerator. They seemed to really enjoy helping us eat well during our recovery!

The next stay wasn't quite as nice, but it worked out fairly well. We were admitted late Friday night/early Saturday morning and discharged on Sunday. It was at a Children's hospital. They had a "gluten free" menu, and the person that took phone calls for the food orders was able to look up and verify if the foods were also dairy and soy free. We did not have a large selection, but we were able to pick and choose somewhat reasonable food for the duration of our stay. I think they would have better accommodated us if the timing had been a bit different, but all in all they fed us safely. It would be nice if there were more selections for produce, but I think that is largely a function of demand!

I hate to think about all of the details, but the importance of good, safe nutrition when trying to get well should not be underestimated.