I got hooked on Days while in the hospital too. Well, first, my mom watched it and had to leave for her senior citizen meeting before it was over and would ask me to watch the last 10 minutes to tell her what happened.
But then I was in the hospital for a month with back traction then surgery and I watched the game shows every day. Days came on right after the last game show so, since I pretty much knew the characters, I would keep it on and watch it. Well, the rest is history. That was in March, 1959!
I too am retired now but I still record it so as to skip the commercials. And I have missed very few episodes, only when the VCR or DVD malfunctioned or there were pre-emptions. I’ll tell ya, this stuff is worse than heroin! 