Common Questions After Discharge

How long will it take me to get better?

There is no one answer to this question, but a good ''rule of thumb'' is that it takes you just as long to get better as your illness lasted up to your hospital release. In other words, if you had pneumonia and have been sick for two weeks prior to your hospital release, it is going to take you another two weeks before you feel like doing your regular activities again.

Most people feel a little bit better every day. Initially, you will need to sleep more than usual and will not have endurance for being out in the cold, reading for long periods of time, or taking care of a big family.

If you start feeling worse, the first thing to do is to get more rest. If rest doesn't help, you should talk with your doctor or an advice nurse. Your worsening symptoms could mean a relapse of your original problem, a problem with one of your new medications, or a new problem.

Remember, if you need to talk to a health care professional about something that is not an emergency, you can contact an advice nurse. He or she can get a message to your doctor as well.

To get more information online, go to members.kp.org.

Disclaimer
If you think you have a MEDICAL OR PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY, CALL 911 IMMEDIATELY or go to the nearest hospital. DO NOT attempt to access emergency care through this web site. An emergency medical condition is a medical or psychiatric condition that manifests itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain) such that you could reasonably expect the absence of immediate medical attention to result in any of the following: serious jeopardy to your health, serious impairment to your bodily functions, or serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part. An emergency medical condition is also "active labor," which means a labor when there is inadequate time for safe transfer to a Plan hospital (or designated hospital) before delivery or if a transfer poses a threat to the health of the member or unborn child.

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