I want to begin by acknowledging how profoundly grateful I am that hospitals exist.
Within functional medicine, traditional medical care is sometimes criticized or dismissed. I understand some of that frustration, particularly when it comes to chronic illness and complex neurodevelopmental conditions. But when it comes to emergency and acute care, I feel very differently. In those moments, conventional medicine is not simply valuable—it can be lifesaving.
In fact, my own healthcare journey began in emergency medicine, back in Dallas, Texas, at Presbyterian Hospital. I did not last long as an emergency room nurse; the intensity and stress eventually overwhelmed me. Still, I will always be grateful for that experience. I developed skills that have stayed with me throughout my career, and I was given an opportunity to see the healthcare system from the inside.
When my husband, James, underwent emergency spinal surgery eight weeks ago, we knew he would be hospitalized. We simply did not know for how long. His stay ultimately included three days in the intensive care unit and five days on a medical-surgical floor.
As I stood beside his bed, memories from my younger nursing years came flooding back. The environment felt familiar, but my position within it was entirely different. This time, I was not the clinician. I was the wife and family member of someone who was critically ill.
I could recount every step of those eight days—from the moments that were honestly quite shocking to the moments when we felt tremendous relief, safety, and gratitude. But my intention is not to catalogue our grievances. Instead, I want to share what we learned so that you, my patient families, may feel a little more equipped if you ever find yourself—or someone you love—on this side of hospital care.
Many of the things that helped us were surprisingly simple. We can think about them through the senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.
Sight: Use Light to Anchor the Day
What your loved one sees—and how clearly they are able to interpret it—matters enormously.
ICU delirium is a recognized complication of critical illness. Day and night can begin to blur together. Sleep is repeatedly interrupted by medications, examinations, alarms, machines, and members of the care team entering the room. Lights may be turned on at all hours, while the blinds and windows do not always provide clear cues about whether it is morning or night.
By the third day of our ICU stay, James was beginning to show signs of delirium. The ICU physician recommended melatonin, and it genuinely helped.
Later, when we moved to the medical-surgical floor, our room was on a side of the building that received almost no direct sunlight. The lack of natural light affected all of us. When I walked into the hallway, I could see sunlight streaming into the rooms across the building, and I found myself wishing we had understood earlier how much that might matter.
When possible, ask whether a room with better natural light is available. Open the blinds in the morning. Dim the room at night. Help your loved one orient to the day, the time, and what is happening next. You can also ask the medical team whether melatonin or another sleep-support strategy is appropriate.
These may seem like small things, but light is one of the body’s strongest signals for regulating sleep, alertness, and circadian rhythm.
Sound: Bring Something That Calms the Nervous System
Pain is an unavoidable reality for many postoperative patients. The medical team will work to manage it, but there are limits. Giving enough medication to eliminate every sensation of pain may also suppress breathing, lower blood pressure, or cause dangerous sedation.
One day, James’s IV became dislodged, and his pain medication was no longer reaching him. His pain began to climb rapidly. Watching someone you love experience that level of agony is almost indescribable. I felt completely helpless.
Then James’s brother, who is a certified registered nurse anesthetist and very familiar with hospital care, took out his phone and began playing Mozart.
As the music played, we watched James’s breathing begin to slow. His heart rate became steadier, and his blood pressure started to come down. Of course, the medical team still had to establish a new IV and restore adequate pain control. Music did not replace medical treatment, but it gave his nervous system something calming to hold on to while we waited.
Do not underestimate the power of sound.
Bring a familiar playlist, nature sounds, rain, crickets, ocean waves, a cello concerto, or a violin duet—anything that feels comforting and grounding to the person you love. In an environment filled with alarms, unfamiliar voices, and mechanical noise, creating a more soothing soundscape is one small but meaningful thing you can control.
Touch: Bring the Comfort of Home
In nursing school in 1998, I learned how to make a bed with proper “hospital corners.” It was literally part of our education: how to fold and tuck a top sheet so precisely that every corner remained tight and flat.
Hospital linens have never been known for comfort. They are clean and practical, but they can also feel stiff, scratchy, and faintly scented with bleach. Even today, James tells me I make the best bed because my hospital corners are still so tight.
A patient coming out of surgery needs a sterile, clean place to land—but that does not mean the environment has to be completely devoid of warmth.
We brought blankets from home: blankets that carried the familiar softness, warmth, and scent of the life waiting for him beyond the hospital walls. We also brought a heated blanket that could be plugged in, which gave James more control over his temperature and added another small layer of comfort.
But the most important form of touch came from us.
We held his hand. We rubbed his shoulders. We sat beside him. We reminded him, through our presence, that he was not alone.
Our son, William, shared the responsibility of caring for his dad with the rest of our family, but every night, William stayed at his bedside. During the day, one of us was always there. When evening came and the hospital grew quieter, William was the one who remained.
William is now 23 and is considering a career in medicine. Watching him step into the role of an adult son, protector, and calm, confident leader while the rest of us were still in shock is something I will never forget. He slept in an uncomfortable hospital room, woke whenever his dad needed him, listened carefully to the nurses, and made sure James was never alone through the darkest and most disorienting hours of the night.
Even as I write these words, I tear up.
I am so proud of him.
Seeing that part of my son emerge was one of the unexpected gifts—one of the silver linings—within eight extraordinarily difficult days.
Smell and Taste: Expect the Familiar to Feel Different
The first day after surgery, when James could finally form a few words, he informed the five family members gathered around his ICU bed—clearly more visitors than were technically allowed—that all of us smelled terrible.
After eight hours of complex spinal surgery, his senses seemed extraordinarily heightened. Every smell was overpowering.
Taste was also profoundly altered. Swallowing was initially very difficult because of the manipulation and retraction of his esophagus during surgery. Later, additional complications caused the dysphagia to persist.
Foods and drinks he had always enjoyed suddenly tasted intolerable. He could not stand carbonation. He would take only a few sips of a beverage before refusing it. Nearly every meal tray was sent back untouched.
This leads me to one aspect of the experience that I cannot overlook: hospital nutrition.
We ultimately brought in nearly every bite of food James ate. The meals delivered to his room frequently contained foods he could not swallow, was not supposed to eat, or simply could not tolerate. Even after we tried repeatedly to cancel the trays, another one would often arrive at the next mealtime. Eventually, it became almost comical.
What troubled me more deeply was the food environment available to families and staff.
One morning, I went to the cafeteria for coffee. The breakfast options consisted largely of fried breads and packaged, processed snacks. Alongside the coffee were rows of sodas and a dedicated refrigerator filled with energy drinks. At the checkout counter, every imaginable variety of hot chips was prominently displayed for one final impulse purchase.
I remember standing there thinking: How are patients supposed to heal in an environment where nourishing food is so difficult to find? How are exhausted family members—who are already frightened, sleep-deprived, and under tremendous stress—supposed to sustain themselves?
This is not about shaming individual hospitals, cafeteria employees, nurses, physicians, or staff members. Many people within these systems are working extraordinarily hard, often with limited resources and under immense pressure.
It is about asking a larger and necessary question: Why, in 2026, is nutritious food still treated as an optional part of healthcare rather than an essential part of healing?
Until that changes, families may need to plan ahead. When permitted, bring foods your loved one can safely swallow and tolerate. Ask whether a speech-language pathologist, dietitian, or nutrition specialist should be involved. Bring nourishing snacks for yourself as well. Caregivers cannot continue caring effectively if they are not eating, sleeping, or tending to their own basic needs.
Not every family has the time, resources, or access to bring fresh, nutritious food from home, and healthy choices are not equally accessible in every community. That makes the responsibility of hospitals even greater: if nutrition is part of healing, the place caring for us when we are sick should make wholesome food the standard, not the exception.
Taking the Lessons Forward
I want to close with gratitude.
Our hospital experience was not perfect, and we never would have chosen to endure what happened. But we survived it.
James is doing remarkably well. He is walking again. He is eating real food. His swallowing has improved. He is driving, returning to work, and slowly reclaiming the life that was interrupted so abruptly eight weeks ago.
Whenever something difficult happens, we carry the lessons forward.
God willing, we will remain out of the hospital for a very long time—hopefully forever. But should we ever find ourselves there again, we will be better prepared.
We will remember the light.
We will bring the music.
We will bring something soft and familiar from home.
We will hold hands.
We will bring nourishing food.
And we will remember that even in a place where so much feels frightening and beyond our control, there are still small and meaningful ways to create comfort, safety, dignity, and connection.
I hope our experience helps you feel more empowered should you ever find yourself walking this road with someone you love.
With love and gratitude,
Dr. G
