I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV . . .

But, as a world-renowned social influencer, I am here to share some newly discovered life hacks in case you ever have to be in the hospital.

By now you may have read “Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow” or “New Information and a New Friend”, so you know that I’ve been in the process of chemotherapy for the past three months. After my usual Monday blood tests on October 23, my oncologist’s office called to let me know that I had basically no white blood cells. I needed to come in and get a shot of Neupogen, which stimulates the bone marrow to produce new white cells. After getting shots for three days, and coming down with a fever, I was sent to the hospital, where I was admitted for chemo-induced neutropenia. To cheer myself up, I started trying to look at things as, well, blog material.

We’ll start in the emergency department, where you most likely will spend anywhere from hours to days. If you are neutropenic you will have to be in an isolation room like this one, to minimize your contact with germs. There probably won’t be any windows but try not to get confused as to what day it is. You can always look on your phone, as long as you’ve remembered to bring your cord and charger. If you offer to come back and paint murals on the drab walls, don’t take it personally if no one takes you up on it.

Most likely, they will put an oxygen meter on one of your fingers. This makes it so you can play “ET” at night if you get bored.

At first, my oxygen meter had a very short “lead”. If you have one like this, it’s going to make it hard to use your hand for anything, because you can’t reach very far. After a couple of days, a nurse noticed this and went and got me one with a longer cord. Who would have ever thought? So if this happens to you, maybe you can ask for a longer cord. You heard it here first.

I can’t tell you how many masks I either lost or laid down somewhere and then felt like it had germs on it and didn’t want to put it on again. One of the nurses showed me this handy method of making sure you don’t lose your mask. You just put it on your wrist as pictured above.

Once you are admitted, they will bring you your meals. If for some reason your spoon has something on it (even though you know it’s been through the dishwasher) but you don’t want to ask for a new one, you actually can eat yogurt with a fork. You can also put yogurt on your French toast in case you didn’t know you had to specifically ask for syrup when they took your breakfast order.

Unless you are twelve years old, a juice box like this may present a bit of an issue. Just remember that after you have figured out how to insert the straw, do not, under any circumstances, squeeze the box when you pick it up. It will squirt juice everywhere, which I should have known after teaching middle school for so many years. One of the life skills I’d learned from pre-teens that I’d have done well to have remembered.

This is a call light, which also doubles as a light switch for you. The light bulb icons at the bottom, marked A and B, are supposed to turn your room light on and off. You may wonder if you can use it to dim the lights in addition to just turning them on and off. It’s likely that nobody will know the answer to this, so you may have to Google it.

You probably won’t find a user’s manual online, but you’ll find them for sale on eBay for about $30 to $40.

If you are in the hospital for more than one night, you will need to have someone go to your house and check on your cat. Said cat will be none too happy about being left home by himself, but your friend can try calling you through FaceTime. You can talk to your pet and, while he may not recognize your face on your friend’s phone, he will definitely recognize your voice. This will make you both feel much better.

“Okay, Mom, I guess I’ll just get a drink of water now.”

Once you get home from the hospital, be ready for him to give you the “sad and forlorn” treatment, at least for a few hours.

But after a while he will settle back into his old routine, happy that Mom’s back and “all’s right with the world”.