The conditions in a hospital: The food

I forgot to mention something about the water in the previous post, not that someone is saying - there was a bathroom, there's no need to keep complaining about it. 😅
First, I said that water that is so soft that it can't wash anything off your skin shouldn't be a problem for the hospital, but for the entire city. And yet, I showered in a hotel in the city the day before and the water there wasn't like that. Also, while I lived there, I don't remember it being such a big problem. Maybe because I didn't live in the area of ​​this hospital and I didn't use the same water, or... I don't know why anymore. And having such water available, albeit with a small room available - one small shower cabin for three rooms and a toilet for one, will it be possible for me to be waited for to "take a shower", if I can at all, in a room that is not locked from the inside? To be waited to soap myself, and then struggle with washing off... just like I struggled with washing over the toilet or washing my face over the tap, even more so because my long hair and my whole body would be involved? No matter how I calculated this, I couldn't make a decision that yes, I was able to do this and things would work out. So I started looking at other potential bathing options. Yes, Bulgarians are an inventive people. And I had decided to wash my hair at the toilet tap when that day came, no matter how long it was going to take. At that same tap, I planned to wash myself here and there, separate parts of my body that became more urgent. If I had to stay there for a few more days. But...

I don't remember what time of night I struggled with the washing the first night, but the second night my roommate said: "There's no hot water."

I don't think it really made any impression on me at the time. But I went into our "bathroom" - the toilet room, where we were already doing everything, around 10:00 pm, and maybe around 10:30 pm, when I was finishing up with the struggle, the hot water suddenly came on.

Wow, how accurately everything was calculated! At 10 pm they turn on the patients' infusions, by 10:30 pm they are already finished, the patients are exhausted or dizzy, already half-asleep. No one would start taking a shower at 10:30 pm, when the hot water is actually coming. 😂

So, tell me, was there any opportunity to take a shower? Was there any opportunity to wash at all, although we did, despite the conditions? I think I have a right to be dissatisfied in this regard, don't you think so? Although, my roommate said (reassuringly): "Come on, we didn't come here for a hotel." 😃

So, the food.

I was quite pleasantly surprised, my roommate and I, when we were served this thing for lunch on the first day. We were both scared, waking up early in the morning, not sleeping because of fear, then all the hassle of going to the hospital, getting blood drawn, worrying about everything, including the lack of a bathroom.

I was definitely hungry, just like her, and seeing how sweetly she was eating, I started too, overcoming my great squeamishness that I have of meals in public places like kindergartens, public canteens, and... apparently, hospitals.

Still, I didn't manage to eat much, I saved the rest for the evening, when we got this plate in the middle, some rice with vegetables, along with yogurt, this one on the right, and two slices of bread.
And when I say evening, we got our dinner at 4:30 PM. We had 30 minutes to eat and return our plate.
Believe me, that was the second shock for me that day. Our lunch was served at 12:30 PM. Dinner at 4:30 PM. I'm a person who, either because of my poor childhood or because I'm a HSP, and these people have some biological characteristics, I can suddenly get really hungry, and I also can't go a long time without food. And from 4:30 p.m. until the next day, that's a pretty long time for me. So I always have to have food with me. And my partner often jokes about my tendency to hoard, especially food, because only then am I at peace...

But now it was:
"You are not allowed to leave any food in the room overnight."
"Why?"
"Well, because of the cockroaches."
"Are there cockroaches here?" I ask in shock, starting to imagine how my suitcase, left half-open on the floor next to my bed, will fill with cockroaches overnight. And then I'll take them home. And in the village where we live, there are no cockroaches.
"There are no cockroaches," the nurse begins to ramble, "but there will be if you leave some food out overnight."
I remain silent. But I think at the same time: "Of course there are cockroaches in the hospital! Otherwise they wouldn't insist so much on such cleanliness."
I remember what my aunt had told me years ago, maybe almost 30, when she was lying in a hospital and at night rats were running between the beds. Well, I also lived, as I said, back then, in the same conditions, with rats in the toilets and worms in the beds, in the boarding house of the most elite language school in the country. But at least today there are no rats.😁

But God, what is this barracks regime - dinner at 4:30p.m.?

First, I don't like rice because of bad memories from my poor past, lol.
I only tried it after seeing how sweetly my roommate was eating. I took everything out, but kept the yogurt and the slices of bread. No matter what, I have to have bread with me.

"Leave the bread," I advised my roommate, "at least until the evening, in case you get hungry."
"Oh no, I can't eat plain bread like that," she replied.
"That's because you haven't seen hunger or poverty.", I shot it unintentionally.
And I think that because of these words of mine, this woman subsequently constantly insisted on buying me coffee, without me giving her any money. 😂 She was a well-off pensioner, not typical of the mass of pensioners in Bulgaria, but that is a completely different topic and story.

So, I left the yogurt, which I ate a little later in the evening, then ate some bread. I didn't like the yogurt. I haven't eaten such products for years, either because of their unreasonably high prices in Bulgaria, or because of their low quality, although they are traditional products for the country. The milk was 2% and absolutely tasteless, with no density... in short, the worst quality product, chosen for hospital food. The bread was ok.

This was provided for breakfast the next morning.
Well, that sent me back to kindergarten 😅, and I didn't even try it. I was sent to other wards for checkups and tests, and when I got back, I ate a sandwich, the last one I had left of the ones I had prepared at home for this difficult "journey." Despite the threats of cockroaches, it spent the night hidden in my backpack and locked in the small wardrobe that stood next to my roommate's bed. My jacket and shoes were also locked there.

After this photo, I stopped taking any photos of the food. And if you want, believe me, but I don't remember what they gave us for lunch or dinner that day. I only kept the slices of bread and it was good that I kept the slices from lunch, because the ones from dinner tasted moldy, and the ones from lunch were fresher, so I ate those.

In the evening (at 16:30) there was yogurt again with something else, but this time I returned the yogurt along with the meal, without opening it, because I already knew it didn't taste good.

The reason for all this was that I suddenly felt sick and was afraid that I might have been poisoned by this food. And as I said, there were no facilities in this hospital for other illnesses like vomiting or diarrhea, for going to the toilet at all 😆So I chose not to eat that day - just a small sandwich with a bun from Lidl that I had made at home and a slice of bread.

The next day we were each given a dry bun with a sausage/hot dog, but in a very low-quality form, for breakfast, which I managed to eat only around 6pm, after all the running around other hospitals and wards for examinations and that was it.

Thank you for your time! Copyright:	@soulsdetour
	Soul's Detour is a project started by me years ago when I had a blog about historical and not so popular tourist destinations in Eastern Belgium, West Germany and Luxembourg. Nowadays, this blog no longer exists, but I'm still here - passionate about architecture, art and mysteries and eager to share my discoveries and point of view with you.

Personally, I am a sensitive soul with a strong sense of justice.
Traveling and photography are my greatest passions.
Sounds trivial to you?
No, it's not trivial. Because I still love to travel to not so famous destinations.🗺️
Of course, the current situation does not allow me to do this, but I still find a way to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, new places, beauty and art.
Sometimes you can find the most amazing things even in the backyard of your house.😊🧐🧭|