The things I have learned being a professional patient...

Here I think is a good cartoon they have in every hospital room. My family will laugh at this because they side with the nurse, my wife.
In the past, hospital rooms we're actually wards. In the ward there would be ten to a hundred people in all different states of health. It had to be similar to experience I had in many intensive care waiting rooms.
I remember being in Children's Memorial Hospital intensive care unit where children miraculously survived or died every day. Our grandchild lived through several life or death emergencies. They finally found the rare disorder and fixed it. He lived. But children were not so lucky. In the waiting room was like living in war. I couldn't wait to leave.
Our feisty patient in the cartoon is very aware of obvious suffering. I have been there. When I have looked closer at the people the nurse was treating, I became aware that there were others indeed more sick then I. I then was also the patient another time who was so sick I was barely conscious.
All this experience doesn't necessarily change how much I've groan to Barb, which is why my family is still laughing. But the perspective we have is important both to the nurse and the complaining patient. The professional has seen it all, and yet they have to pay attention to the personal experience of the patient who may be at a low point and not at their best.
Overall my experiences I am very thankful for the caregivers. It is usually later at night when nobody's around that I come to my senses about the wonderful the care Barb gives me. Why I am such a baby with her is amazing. I guess it's why I found the cartoon funny. Keep walking