5 Tips For A Homey Hospital Room

If you’re a cancer patient or caregiver, you probably have a love/hate relationship with the hospital. It is truly a miraculous place of healing, but sometimes when you have to go for treatment, it can feel like a miraculous jail cell.  In this post I offer some tips on how I was able to make my hospital room feel a little less like a cell, and a little more like an extension of home.

I know, I know – how could a hospital room ever feel like home? The short answer is that it probably never will. Don’t get me wrong, I have an eternal gratitude for the hospital because it’s where my cancer was cured, but I never want to have to stay overnight there again if I don’t have to. I will share some tidbits that I hope that you can use to make it more comfortable! 

Side note, the nurses and hospital staff are trying to make the hospital stay more comfortable, don’t forget to say thank you to them for all that they do!

But back to the post – since a lot of time in the hospital is laying in bed, let’s start with a few tips that have to do with making the bed a little more homey!

Tip #1: Replace your pillowcase with a t-shirt from home

I don’t know about you, but whenever I was in the hospital for treatments, I felt oily. I don’t know if it was the chemo or the bedsheets, but no matter which hospital I was at, I would always feel like there was this thin layer of oil on my skin throughout my entire admission (and yes don’t worry – I showered regularly). And I think mentally I kind of connected that feeling to the hospital bed and sheets. But this tip really helped with that.

Using a t-shirt from home as a pillowcase was a constant (and much needed) reminder of home, and was more comfortable to lay on in my opinion than the hospital pillowcases.

Bonus tip: bring a pillow from home too for extra comfort!

Tip #2: Bring fuzzy blankets from home

This might be my favorite tip on the list. For starters, it was a reminder of home and life outside of the hospital. Second, it was always way more comfortable than the scratchy hospital blankets. Third, at least for me, when I was hooked up to fluids all day on the IV pole, I was cold. So the fuzzy blankets helped remarkably with that too. And finally, it helped with the oily issue I mentioned earlier! 

Bonus tip: if you’re a friend of someone that just got diagnosed, a fuzzy “cancer blanket” is a great gift.

Tip #3: Put a memory foam mattress topper on the bed

I can’t even express how much this helped me. As a guy that was always too big for his age, even at fifteen years old I was too big for those hospital beds. I was too tall, sure, but I was also heavy enough that I would just sink into the hospital mattresses and sometimes even feel like plastic underneath. Using a memory foam topper on my bed was a hassle to carry in, but it was 110% worth it for making my stay WAY more comfortable. Make sure the hospital will allow it before you bring it!

Tip #4: Peel oranges

I would think that any citrus fruit would do the trick here, but I always used oranges and lemons. When you peel off the skin of an orange or a lemon, it releases an aroma that has been known to help with nausea! And quite honestly for all of you that have been in the hospital enough to know what I’m talking about here, I noticed that it would just kind of take the “hospital scent” out of the air.

Tip #5: Bring your favorite TV show or movie

I’d recommend a TV show here, but hey, if you’re a movie buff, you go for it. The only reason I often preferred watching TV shows instead is because they lasted me a longer time, so I wasn’t always deciding what movie to watch next.

But anyhow, bringing a movie or a TV show from home always gave me a mental escape from my hospital room and put me back home for however long I watched. During my first fight with cancer, my dad and I would watch Family Guy for hours and hours. It was the comedic relief we needed at the time. During my bone marrow transplant, I would watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer with my girlfriend! That’s my all-time favorite show so that really helped me stay sane in there. No matter what show it is for you – it’s a great way to take a mental break from treatment!

So there you have it – 5 tips to make your hospital room a little more “homey!” I sincerely hope that some of these tips can help all of you cancer warriors out feel a little more comfortable during your hospital admissions! 

As always, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, tips of your own, topics you would like to see covered, or just feel like chatting to someone that’s been through it. You can do that through my contact page. I am always here for you.

-Alex

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Photo by Christopher Jolly on Unsplash