Thank you Jeanette for understanding. I have some fairly difficult digestive issues with poor through transit. I need roughage to try to make the system work. This aspect of life is not addressed in here at all, though they have been informed. My gp supplements my diet with extra roughage granules, but they have not bothered in here.
I can understand Joan’s position but she speaks from total ignorance. The pain in my gut and chest can be far worse than from a broken hip.
Greasy stuff makes for the burning stuff in the throat. I already have gastro-oesophageal reflux. My system manages fine with a fairly simple diet. I avoid white bread or pizza like the plague, Meat I have always found revolting, though I was forced to eat it as a child by parents and teachers with Joan’s attitude. I have eaten and thrown up for the starving all over the world.
I am convinced I need vitamins and this hospital diet is devoid of them. Blood counts show I no longer make vitamin D and should have phials of it frequently, but they choose to ignore this information in here. It is not exactly a holistic approach to medicine. Yet my body is supposed to grow bone over the screws in my joint to make the joint stable.
Anyone can see, when my tray arrives with boiled cold mushrooms, a helping of lettuce, a sliver of cheese, and a slice of white bread, that there isn’t that much nourishment on offer. The following meal is more lettuce, two warm raw eggs swimming in some yellow greasy fluid, and a couple of baked tomatoes with more bread. Ok the eggs are probably wonderful but I cannot eat the darned things, and I don’t want all that grease, and they are revolting.
I am planning to leave on Saturday. I have discussed it with the physio who advised keeping weight off the leg for three weeks. She said the doctor would prescribe a walking frame, but he says he won’t. I will rest up at home. I will be able to cook for myself there. The doctor is against it. I am going to phone my mutual today to find if in any way they would refuse to pay the hospital because of my leaving early against doctor’s advice. The doctor says I can have permission to go home for the day on Saturday, I really see no point in returning. A friend is coming to get me.
I simply have to eat. It can’t be good to have lost all this weight in the nineteen days I have been in here.
The doctor has Joan’s attitude, eat what you’re given, what do you expect, this is an institution.
I have spoken to a dietician, but that makes no difference whatsoever. People have brought food in for me, but then the kitchen take my food and serve it to me whether I want it or not. It seems I am not in charge of my food that is taken to a remote fridge. Someone brought in a whole quiche. It was served heated up along with an omelette that happened to be on the menu. I could not eat a family sized quiche. It was then thrown away. I thought maybe I could have asked for it to be brought so I could have a portion of it when there was no protein on offer. But not so. For me it would have been like having scrambled eggs. I would not have eaten the pastry, since like bread, it causes dreadful indigestion.
Today I asked a neighbour to bring in some muesli. So I could have something for breakfast other than white bread. Oats are much better than wheat products. She will refuse payment, yet she would have already spent money on driving over an hour to get here. I also asked her to bring in some flaked almonds, because I can keep these here.
I guess being on a geriatric ward doesn’t help. I am not expected to be able to make decisions. I am treated as though I am slightly dim. I hope my mutuelle will pay for my stay here, and I can get out.
You do have a lot to contend with. But just pretend you’re in a war zone, with starving others around you, pick over what they give you, separate out what you like etc.
Your not going to die in one month eating what you’ve described.
And, I absolutely do know what we are talking about.
Your surgeon studied 15 years to learn his skills so you can walk again and your thinking of ruining his work by going home too soon.
Just eat your rice and pretend you’re in rural China.
If you want so much special attention then you need private care. Try phoning a local restaurent and have them deliver. That’s what we’d have done in Cambodia.
Call uber and ask for a delivery from your grocery of choice.
Get a enterologist to evaluate you.
If you’re not geriatric then take more initiative.
Yes I’m harsh, but surving in France might require skills similar to surviving in a developing nation.
Call your mutuelle then you won’t need to wonder.
Personally I’d be grateful for any meal served to me in bed on a tray that’d been cooked by anybody else.
I’d even settle for a cuppa.
I would appreciate if you have any questions to send me a personal email. FYI Your clothes were all hung up in the appartment bedroom. Everything else has been put in crates (spices, food, etc) under the stairs. 25€ for driving & feeding 2 cats and walking your dog twice a day is the rate I charge (which you are aware of). Everything else was moved to your appartment next to the gite. I’m dissappointed after having received a distraught phone call from you for my immediate help that you now think it appropriate to put derogatory comments on a forum. You didn’t mention that I offered to look after your elderly dog for 6-8 weeks foc rather than leave him in a kennel! Please message me if you have any further comments.
Money was taken from your purse on YOUR suggestion to pay for the cleaning of the gite and for me to buy cat food. I am disgusted with your comments (on a forum without you even contacting me personally), fortunately, the professional cleaner was aware of what you said to me!
Ouch!
there’s always two sides… 
Won’t somebody think of the cats!!
Hello Lois, and all. Im not an understanding person so feel quite chuffed to be awarded that compliment. I would never have either the patience to tolerate high levels of food discomfort, or to self abuse by forcing myself to eat anything painful or disgusting, to be a food martyr… unless there was zero alternative. .Starving is to be managed well. The best idea looks like …kindly smiles all round, big and sincere apologies for any hurt feelings…and then, just clear off, pronto …as fast as little legs can manage, as you suggest…checking that this will not affect your health cover badly.
There seems to be some disputes in your life …that will need resolution. Hope all turns out well, for everyone. Peace to all. J
I think I’d be ending up with a persecution complex if everywhere I went, my dietary lifestyle was being ignored, I was being offered meat as a vegetarian, and offered overripe bananas and obviously rotten eggs. I’d start thinking that they hated me for some reason.Incidentally, are your cats vegetarian too? Interested because animals are ‘my thing’ and I know that cats are obligate carnivores,. It always struck me as odd that someone so opposed to animals being killed for meat, would have a pet which requires the very meat the owner id so opposed to…
Surely, taking money without permission is stealing?
after reading all of the posts, I agree with you Joan, however we will be unpopular for voicing our opinion.Perhaps because I’m on the autism spectrum and have little apathy I started to wonder why everyone seems to dislike the poor OP that they offer her rotten eggs and bananas, won’t feed her, steal money from her, she has no friends and seems generally disliked.
When my son was a vegetarian, he went to Spain for an intensive Spanish language course. On his last couple of days there, he had his wallet stolen and literally had his plane ticket and some change. One of his housemates, took pity on him and gave him some cans of bean soup with sausages in. He said heartfelt thanks and ate them, because he prefered not to starve, it was only for a couple of days and he could resume his diet of choice when he returned home. ‘Make do’ seems to be a sentiment nobody likes any more and no matter how extreme or inconvenient for others, their beliefs, lifestyle, or diet at, they jolly well expect others to pander to them.In all honesty, eggs make me want to puke, brussels sprouts and parsnips are disgusting, but if that is what was available in a hospital I was in, I’d flipping well eat them because when life offers you Hobson’s choice, you deal with it in the short term.
If I had so many things conspiring against me with regard to my many health issues, on top of a very particular diet, I would have private health cover, or I would not live in a foreign country where vegetarianism is almost viewed as a strange cult…yes, yes, I know I’m mean and nasty…
at last we are seeing the other side of the tale. I just had a ‘feeling’ there was more to it. I’ve never met anyone who was used, abused and universally disliked by all around them, unless they were not nice people themselves. Glad to hear what really happened. As Judge Judy always says ; “no good deed goes unpunished”. I have a mobile phone app which records all conversations. I’ve found it most useful. It’s free. If you have a mobile phone, look for ‘total recall’ and install it just in case you ever deal with someone dishonest, spiteful, a liar or perhaps senile who doesn’t remember what actually was said.
I think empathy is the word you were looking for Pam. I’d also add compassion and understanding - and I heartily endorse your view of yourself bring mean and nasty. At least you demonstrate a level of self awareness…a good thing as far as autism is concerned.
Difficult to know what to take on board in this thread. I thought the difficulty was with the language… but OP is fluent.
My first hospital visit in France…delivered by fabulously handsome pompiers (be still my beating heart)… I had very little French and certainly no self-confidence…even so… I managed to survive…and, indeed to make my fears,needs etc etc known and addressed, in the end. No I am not vegetarian, but I have other difficulties which might well (and do) seem absurd to others.
Life in Hospital is never going to be like being at home… but the staff and services I have encountered over the years…in a wide variety of establishments…have been professional and courteous… and depending on the length of time I have to “work” on them… they have gone that extra mile and been amazingly kind and helpful.
Before anyone chimes in about me and my rose-coloured glasses… what I am saying really is how it happens…perhaps I just lead a charmed-life 
I hope the OP difficulties in the Hospital were just a one-off and that she will now be able to recover asap. 
So you endorse that Pam is mean and nasty.
How compassionate you are???
No one stole anything!! As explained above! Lois needs to keep her personal 'dirty washing ’ private and her mouth shut otherwise she could be sued for defamation of character…