Hi Butterfly40, Hope you're doing well. Just thought that I'd post about being in a public room. I was in hospital for 6 days and was in a two bed room and during that time I had 3 or 4 different ladies in sharing the room. All of the ladies I shared with were lovely - they were all in for different surgeries than mine ( single mastectomy with immediate recon) but were all very nice and all very busy trying to get better before being discharged. I too took practically everything I owned into hospital, and used their gowns and my dressing gown and slippers and that was about it until the day of discharge. The things that I did use were the reading and colouring in books. Fantastic. I really didn't feel like I was in for that length of time and did make use of the cafeteria for lots of lovely coffee visits with friends and family. The nursing staff knew if I wasn't near my bed I was off having coffee. Nothing like catching up socially. All the best. Xx Cath