Ever think about having to have your vital signs monitored?

I spent a few nights in the ICU taking turns keeping a patient company.  

 The monitors in each ICU room could carry the vital signs of two patients, so when the nurse was taking care of one ICU patient, the vital signs of the other patient - which the nurse was covering - could be viewed.  The image for this banner shows a few vitals for one patient.  If the vitals ran out of an acceptable range, an audible alarm sounded.  

The ICU is quite a noisy place at night.

Some of the things you can hear are the IV pumps (a quiet whirling sound when they are pumping, and an alarm beep when they occlude, when they sense an air bubble in the line, or when they run dry), breathing apparatuses (on patients with pulmonary problems) which honk like geese flying south,  pills being hammered into powder with mortar and pestle, nurses being paged over the intercom, the air compressing fans which pump up the bed’s air mattresses, the blood pressure cuff being inflated every 20 minutes.

I don’t think the patients in the ICU hear these noises – as they have other concerns.