what would you like to do during chemo rounds?

I'm 57, and spent mine (9-hour IV chemotherapy sessions) partly reading on an e-reader, and partly using the Internet: the ward had a good phone signal.

Unfortunately the hospital was being miserably bureaucratic - in UK hospitals, a ripoff private company has a monopoly on patient Internet access - and wouldn't let me have guest access to its Wifi hotspot. For a long time they got away with the fiction that mobile phones interfere with medical electronics, but everyone's wise to this now.

Edit: And as Matt says, 40-50 and even a decade or more older, is not some group that's going to have stereotypical old-fashioned interests. Middle-aged people generally aren't as texting-obsessed as teenagers, but are otherwise are likely to be fully conversant with technology.

I was 49 when I underwent my chemo and I always enjoyed just visiting with friends during the sessions (about five hours). The one time I went by myself, I brought a book and my netbook to access the internet. The infusion center also had a TV available if I wanted to watch television.

I was 46 during my treatment.

18 sessions, 6 of them 4 hour sessions, 12 of them 2 hour sessions.

Sometimes I talked to the nurses or other patients if they wanted to talk.

Sometimes I chatted with a friend if one was with me.

Sometimes I listened to music

Sometimes I just sat admiring the garden and the birds/butterflies (adjacent to my treatment room, on warm days the glass doors were open wide!)

Sometimes I dozed.

Sometimes I flicked through magazines (I lacked the concentration to read books there)

I read, watched movies on my laptop, surfed the web, listened to my iPod, and checked in on work with my cell phone and email. You talk about people in their 40s and 50s as if they all have the same interests and don't understand technology. This age group invented the modern technologies.