tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28664198252314008992024-03-19T03:43:06.112-07:00Missing FactorMost of my life would only make sense if you took into account the missing factor. For many of the guys I knew it was VIII, but for me the missing factor has always been Factor IX.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-87867335485827000492010-06-09T22:44:00.000-07:002010-06-09T22:44:39.095-07:00So, listen, Mr DJ . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbnQWkpDVyzgPTKdIjjhktDQgMfQHsQ67xmjazKBorQ2irw1Fs7iJsRdEKgBdLIwVHfvAQjmeTsQChixMGbyFwybe9AtR0ntYw7izUh41BkTNsezeCqymFxvgZCn2MvYMcSkM3Vf_MIsv/s1600/bigstockphoto_Antique_Radio_6976320.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLbnQWkpDVyzgPTKdIjjhktDQgMfQHsQ67xmjazKBorQ2irw1Fs7iJsRdEKgBdLIwVHfvAQjmeTsQChixMGbyFwybe9AtR0ntYw7izUh41BkTNsezeCqymFxvgZCn2MvYMcSkM3Vf_MIsv/s320/bigstockphoto_Antique_Radio_6976320.jpg" /></a></div>Music has always been an important part of my life. As a child in the 50s I think I looked forward to watching "Your Hit Parade" even more than my parents did. Rock n' Roll was liberating, and just enough dangerous to make it exciting, but the music that really grabbed me was the the Brazilian music of Gilberto and Jobim of the mid-60s, and the jazz they influenced of performers like Stan Getz. Later folk music took its hold on me. I would even take my guitar with me when I was in the hospital.<br />
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As important as music was, and still is, it was almost entirely missing from my experiences in the hospital until around the mid-70s. Now, of course, there is a television either hanging right next to the bed or on the wall, depending on the hospital, with a weird selection of cable channels; and I have my iPod with ten days worth of music, several novels, and a couple movies for when I get tired of learning how to give myself an insulin shot in Spanish on the Hospital Channel.<br />
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There was the odd (in a couple of its meanings) musical event, like the barbershop quartet that tried to be hip by singing several Pat Boone and Elvis Presley hit songs, or the brass quartet that had a strange fixation on the songs of Gene Pitney (their rendition of "Town Without Pity" was...haunting), but by and large there was no music in our day to day routine. It was partly because portable radios were a bit too expensive for my parent's budget, and also because the radios of the time had lousy, if any, reception on the wards. Almost all the popular broadcasting at that time was done by AM stations, and things like tunnels, underpasses, and very large buildings could block the signal.<br />
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Somewhere around my twelfth birthday the family acquired a pocket, transistor radio. It was, for the time, very sleek and high tech, and probably could have fit in a pocket if it was rather large and commodious and you didn't mind ripping a seam or two. On one of my trips to the hospital that winter, Mom bought a bag full of "D" size batteries and I took it with me. It had a leather case that had perforations over the speaker, and I thought it gave me a very cool, with-it look. Oddly enough, I didn't play it all that often. As I mentioned before, reception was terrible on the ward, and my arm would get tired holding it up to my ear at the specific angle it needed to pick up a signal. The radio had a telescoping antenna that was about two feet long, and just when you would get the radio positioned correctly, that antenna would droop and all you would get was static.<br />
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One afternoon after lunch I was fiddling with the radio trying to find a station with something besides farm reports. I made a couple trips up and down the dial finding nothing more than static of various levels of clarity. Just when I was about to give up I found a station playing music. What's more it was playing the kind of music that would make my mother huff and say, "They call that music?"<br />
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I can't remember what the song was when I tuned in. It ended, and the DJ talked for a minute and then introduced the next song. He said it was a new release by Jack Scott. I had heard of Jack Scott. His song "My True Love" had been played on "American Bandstand." He had this flat baritone—not off key flat, just...flat—that sounded like he could probably deck Superman in a bar fight. He almost made Johnny Cash sound girly. His back-up group were just about as tough sounding.<br />
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The record started and the back-up singers started singing, "Goo'd-bye, baby, bye-bye." A few bars later Jack came in with that honky-tonk voice telling his girl he was going to leave her. You got the feeling he'd leave her someplace that had sawdust on the floor and a lot of pick-up trucks in the parking lot. The arrangement was simple even by rockabilly standards, and the only instrument I could hear was a bass plunking along. In fact it sounded almost doo-wop. The kind of doo-wop you'd find in a bar in Northern Michigan where boilermakers were considered a light refreshment.<br />
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I was mesmerized. To this day whenever I hear that song I am back in Bed 12 on 10-West. I see the bedside stand, and the metal water pitcher, and feel the sheets against my skin. And when I try to remember what the ward looked like I hear that song.<br />
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About ten years later I was on 8-West with an undisclosed hemorrhage, meaning I don't remember what was bleeding. Anyway, it was the late 60s and the head nurse had a fairly relaxed attitude about things like visiting hours. As long as it didn't interfere with anyone's treatment or disturb anyone, you could have visitors just about anytime. The fact that several of the nurses were friends didn't hurt either. As a result a roommate or two, and a girlfriend or two would often stop up to see me after the bars closed. I was pretty much in the habit of staying up most of the night and sleeping during the day because the daytime was, in my opinion, quieter, so it fit in with my schedule.<br />
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One night, morning if you want to be pedantic about it, I was reading when two or three grinning people appeared at my bedside. By that time they were giving us Demerol for pain, and keeping a strict count of the number of people was too much of a bother. I'm pretty sure my then to be future wife wasn't in the group that night. For a few minutes it was the usual small talk about who was playing at the bars, and if they were any good; and if the transsexual who haunted a couple of them had been picked up by yet another unwitting salesman, or had reappeared with bruises. If he/she showed up the next night with no contusions we usually figured the salesman had been more witting than we had assumed.<br />
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Then W pulled a small cassette recorder out from under his jacket. I asked him what was up, and he said I had to hear this. It was, in his opinion, amazing. I turned the volume knob all the way down, and then pushed the play button. Slowly I turned the volume up until I could hear it with my ear right against the speaker. W had tricked me into waking up the ward before, and I was being careful. It was not my usual brand of music. I was into the Chad Mitchell Trio and Bob Dylan and Joan Baez. I liked the Stones and the Beatles, and rock in general, but preferred folk music and jazz and didn't go in for the heavy metal stuff very much at all.<br />
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It had an organ intro that the bass and drums joined after a couple bars, and then the guitar came in. It was heavily buzzed, but then again so was I, and the riff was primal and to the point. When the singer came in he pretty much growled, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, now honey." The version I remember from W's recording was longer than the one you usually hear, and it had a very nice drum solo which eventually fell back into one of the better grooves, in my opinion, of Rock. The effect of the guitar riff and drum groove was very primal and driving, and surprisingly compelling. It wasn't so much a love song as a pagan fertility chant. W had recorded an fm station's broadcast, and it was hard to determine what was the result of recording questionable speakers with a questionable microphone, and what was due to the actual production values. I'm still not really sure.<br />
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After everyone left I listened to it a couple more times with my ear right against the speaker and my pillows over my head to muffle the sound even more. The next day one of the older guys on the ward stopped by my bed and wanted to know what I was doing during the night. I said not much and asked him if I had bothered him. He said, no, he wasn't bothered, it just sounded like I had an angry bulldog in my bed.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com42tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-55054644520907632582010-03-23T11:58:00.001-07:002010-03-23T12:00:36.935-07:00Put your right foot in, take your right foot out . . .One of the few ways I can still amaze my wife after almost thirty years, at least when I'm not irritating her by doing the very same thing, is by remembering little details of of a place and time. What really makes her shake her head is that I can tell you, draw a floor plan if I must, exactly how the ER was set up in 1954 when I would be passing through on my way up to the wards; but, except for a very few exceptional bleeds I will not be able to remember what was bleeding where to save my soul. It completely baffles my wife. <br />
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It has always been like that. You would think that going over the history, method acquired, duration, severity, previous attempts at the same bleed, etc, etc five times during the admission process would somehow embed it firmly in my memory. You would be wrong. The next time I was admitted to the hospital, no matter if it was the next day, a couple weeks, or a month or two later, I would be back trying desperately to remember why and when I was there the last time. To be fair, most of my hemorrhages had an air of monotony about them that would warm the cockles of an accountant's heart, but it was still just a bit embarrassing not being able to remember when or where my last bleed occurred. Eventually—actually more like in old age—I started keeping a journal listing my bleeds and the dates, location, treatment, etc just so I would be able to tell the doctor, or ER nurse. The only problem with the journal is that I often forget to make the entries. But we forge on.<br />
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What I am trying to say is that I have always been able to remember the very trivial, like what Dion wore on his first appearance on "American Bandstand," but I draw a complete blank on the more important moments; which is my way of saying I have completely forgotten this girl's name and how I met her.<br />
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I believe her name started with a 'D', which is as good a letter as any, so I'll call her Donna, and I have a hunch I met her at the <a href="http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/684">Prehistoric Forest</a>. Prehistoric Forest was a tourist trap/roadside attraction in the Irish Hills area of Michigan, and the summer between my junior and senior years in high school I worked there as a tour guide. It was the perfect job for a young man with a highly developed interest in young women, and I had more than a few dates because of it. I think the chain of events went something like: I met Donna and got her phone number when her family stopped in at the Prehistoric Forest; then I had this hemorrhage; and finally Donna and I went out on our one and only date. Some of the details may be incorrect, but I know I had the hemorrhage, and I know we had the date.<br />
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The hemorrhage was a doozie. My knowledge of neuro-anatomy is, on a good day, sketchy at best. I have a pretty good idea of the general whereabouts of the brain and spinal column. After that, what started out as a kind of vague awareness becomes total ignorance. However, there is, I guess, a spot down near where your leg meets your torso where some nerves and blood vessels share space in a tube-like thing, and inside that tube-like thing is where my body decided to experiment with some spontaneous bleeding not long after I apparently met this girl not really named Donna. (Diagram that sentence, Sister Rose. I dare you.)<br />
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At this time treatment for bleeds consisted of what was essentially the second or third generation of AHG—the horrendously named Anti-Hemophiliac Globulin—but I think it had a new name which I have forgotten. They might have taken to calling it AHF (Anti-Hemophilia Factor), I don't know. There were a lot of variations on a theme at the time, and they all seemed to be experimental. Cryo-participate was still a year or so in the future, and the focus was on finding something, anything, that was consistently effective.<br />
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You also have to remember that I was a teenage boy whose attention could very easily get distracted by a passing student nurse. When an attractive young lady was making my bed, or just on the ward. you probably could have hung neon purple icing on my IV and called it "Bleeder Glop," and it's even betting that I wouldn't have noticed. <br />
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Anyway, the new AHG, or AHF, or whatever, was basically a freeze-dried powder that had to be mixed with sterile water. The problem was that it dissolved about as easily as ground glass, and would form a more or less permanent foam if stirred even slightly vigorously or shaken at all. The nurses really didn't have time to mix it, and the blood bank didn't feel mixing the stuff was their job. (Our products were handled by the hospital's blood bank pretty much up until the late 60s or early 70s.) So we, the patients that is, often got assigned the job.<br />
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Thirty minutes or so before your treatment was due a nurse would bring in three to six tube-like vials. They were about an inch in diameter, and about six inches long, and were handled with the same care and overt steadiness you would give to nitroglycerin. You would then spend the next half hour or so gently rolling them back and forth on your bed until they had finally mixed. The nurse would then draw the contents of each vial and inject them into a larger bottle which would then be hung and finally you would get your treatment through an IV. This procedure also had to be done smoothly and gently. If the nurse injected the fluid too quickly into the large bottle you could end up with a bottle full of froth that could never be coaxed through an IV tube, let alone a needle. Makes me tired just thinking about it.<br />
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I don't know how effective it was as a coagulant, but it was amazingly sticky and would have made an excellent glue. <br />
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This hemorrhage soon let us know it was no run of the mill joint or soft tissue bleed. It felt like a white hot spike was being driven into my groin, and soon had my complete attention. This was before the hospital allowed guys with hemophilia to be given narcotics, and we pretty much had to find our own way of dealing with the pain. None of my usual practices worked. Actually, they never really worked all that well, but they usually allowed me to get through the day with a modicum of sanity. This time there were several days I couldn't even scrape up a modicum.<br />
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One of my life's truly selfless hero's arrived just in time. Like I said, Hospital Policy did not allow bleeders to be given narcotics. Since we always seemed to be bleeding it was feared they would be creating addicts right and left if they opened that cabinet. This young doctor, I believe he was a Simpson Fellow but I'm not sure—he was definitely through his internship and first couple years of residency—anyway, after a couple of days watching me have my fun he decided enough was enough, and not only ordered, but personally administered a hefty dose of morphine.<br />
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I don't know what kind of trouble, if any, he got into for this breech of policy, but the shot, and one or two after, allowed me to get through the worst of the bleed. In hindsight I also think it might have helped the healing process. When you are in pain with a hemorrhage the muscles around the bleed tense up and put a lot of strain on the area that's bleeding. It's my belief that this strain, and constant tension, don't allow the tiny vessels that are bleeding to heal, and if you can relieve the pain the muscles relax, which takes the strain off the injury and allows it to begin healing.<br />
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Anyway, the hemorrhage finally resolved itself, and sometime around the third week the discussion during rounds turned to sending me home. The only problem was, my leg didn't work.<br />
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The hemorrhage had pinched a nerve or two and the muscle responsible for straightening my right leg and keeping it straight was no longer receiving orders. For you anatomy buffs out there, I think it was the rectus femoris, which also has some role in flexing the thigh. The upshot of all this is that walking was just a bit iffy. My foot wouldn't come forward like it should when taking a step, and it would drag like I was doing a bad imitation of the mummy; and when I was standing still it was more a matter of balancing on my leg, and every now and then it would just collapse at the most inconvenient times. Dancing was definitely right out. I also had trouble—as in couldn't do it if you paid me—lifting my foot/leg to cross them or do something mundane like move my foot from the gas pedal to the brake. And as for actually pressing the brake pedal, well, we'll get to that in a minute.<br />
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About two weeks after I got home I called Donna. (Remember Donna? I talked about her a little bit several paragraphs back. Nice girl. Lived on a farm outside Dundee. Had two big farm dogs that looked like they brought down the occasional bull just for a snack; and a father who could palm bowling balls, had a cabinet full of very nice shotguns, and some rather strong opinions about curfews.) I explained to her that due to an injury incurred during some very hush, hush work for an agency I couldn't disclose, I had been unable to call her until now, and was wondering if she'd be interested in taking in a movie.<br />
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She couldn't that weekend, but indicated that the next weekend was open for consideration. This was perfect because it allowed me another week to practice some moves. (Please, don't think that way.) Specifically, getting my right foot off the gas pedal and onto the brake, and then if there was time, pressing the brake pedal. I worked on that for several hours every day. It is now my firm belief that young men that age, or perhaps any age, would be much more responsible about their physical therapy, if as a collateral result there was the vague glimmerings of a hope of a possibility of a very pleasant evening with a rather attractive young lady that if followed up properly might possibly lean toward additional, even more very pleasant evenings with said attractive young lady.<br />
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Now, my parents had some rather old fashioned ideas about safety, and had made it clear that I wasn't driving any car, even the '53 Ford Dad drove to work and I used for dates, anywhere until that leg was functioning properly. I pointed out that this would all be a moot point if we had a car with an automatic transmission so I could use my left foot on the brake, but my logic was wasted and both Mom and Dad said they were willing to show me a moot point if I really wanted one. We had a couple of debates about the meaning of 'properly' which I lost, and Mom started making dark hints about perhaps driving Donna and me to the movie. This was clearly unacceptable.<br />
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I worked feverishly on lifting that leg onto the brake pedal. I developed a move I thought was quite ingenious. Instead of reaching directly for the gear shift, I would dip my hand down and quickly grab my leg and throw it onto the brake pedal. I practiced the move for hours in the driveway, and then along the country roads near our house. Finally, the motion was so smooth it almost definitely looked safe, and I was ready for the big test.<br />
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I was so nervous I think I had to change my shirt when we got home, but I had passed. I had driven Mom to Kroger's and back safely, and they decided to let me use the car.<br />
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I made the drive to Dundee, about twenty miles, and found her family's farm south of town without any mishaps. Now, I still usually used a crutch on my right side when walking just to keep from falling when that muscle didn't pay attention to its duties, but in the interest of looking cool I left it in the car when I went up to her door. The dogs were circling, waiting for their chance, but somehow I made it to the door without stumbling. Donna's father seemed to think my surviving the walk from the car an indication of something or other, and only gave me mildly threatening looks while I waited for her. The dogs just watched sullenly when she and I went to the car, and we started the drive back to Tecumseh.<br />
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Everything was going smoothly. I was being so suave and witty Cary Grant could have taken notes, and I was managing the brake more smoothly than Fred Astaire could dance. When we got to the theater she was laughing, and seemed to be having a great time. It's just too bad I had to actually park the car.<br />
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Pulling into the parking space I made my patented grab at my leg. Unfortunately my toe got caught on the brake pedal, and I couldn't flip my foot onto the damn pedal. I jerked at the leg a couple more times, but only managed to look like I was having some kind of spasm. Luckily, we had been going very slowly when we pulled into the parking space, and the city had very kindly put a large telephone pole in front of that particular space.<br />
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Donna was out of the car like a shot, acting as if she'd never seen anyone use a telephone pole to stop before. As I got out my leg buckled up under me, and it seems she had never seen anyone genuflect when exiting an automobile either. That night's showing of an Audie Murphy western and a Steve Reeves Hercules film didn't help my cause much either. By the time it was time to go the seat to my right was cold enough it would have come in handy when I had a bleed.<br />
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Later the next week I tried to call her, but her dad seemed to think she was going to be busy for at least the next twenty years, and suggested I wait until then to call again.<br />
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Still kind of wish I could remember her name.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-48932991942485802852010-03-07T21:18:00.001-07:002010-03-07T21:21:24.436-07:00Don't know much about history . . .Over at <a href="http://bleedingdisorder.wordpress.com/">"Bringing Generations Together"</a> is very nice article in honor of <a href="http://bleedingdisorder.wordpress.com/2010/03/06/hemophilia-awareness-month-march/">Hemophilia Awareness Month</a>. It's another reminder, to me at least, that you can't know where you are if you don't know where you've been. Give it a look.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-55249727694684954772010-02-25T13:52:00.002-07:002010-02-25T13:53:55.289-07:00Number nine, number nine . . .I think the one question that is guaranteed to drive me completely mad is:<br />
<blockquote>On a scale of one to ten, ten being the worst pain you can imagine, how would you rate your pain right now?</blockquote>I hate that bloody question. Mostly because I never know how to answer it. Is this pain a 6 or an 8? It hurts a lot, but nowhere near a couple of hemorrhages I have had. So do I say it's a 5 because it is only about half as bad as the bleed I had in my arm, or is it an 8 or 9 because it still hurts like hell. I think that for most people the worst pain they can imagine is pretty much the worst pain they have experienced, and when I was twelve I was pretty sure I had experienced the worst pain imaginable. As it turns out, I might have been wrong, but that is a story for another time.<br />
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It was when I had the hemorrhage between my kidney and the membrane around it that I mentioned in my last post. By the time the ambulance got me to the University Hospitals I was no longer able to respond to anyone or anything. My universe had become a white/red searing, indescribable point. It was no longer in my back, it was everything. At times there wasn't even a Me anymore, there was just pain.<br />
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It was so bad that for most of the next three weeks my mind said this wasn't in its job description, and just shut down. At various times I was aware, or at least the pain existed, but I could not find anything beyond it to communicate with. It is almost impossible to describe, because there was no temporal or spacial divisions to give anything a reference point. Nothing was linear, and cause and effect were not noticeably present.<br />
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It was sounds I noticed. The voices of my mother or father would drift in from somewhere, and then drift away again. One of the times my father's voice was out there I realized he was reading a story to me. I didn't know what it was about, but it seemed pleasant. Somewhere my being started toying with the idea that I might be something separate from this pain. After that my parents' voices would often come around reading stories to me. I never quite understood what they were saying, but I knew they were there.<br />
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Other voices were also drifting in. Sometimes they were nurses I knew talking to each other, sometimes they were talking to my parents. A strange, male voice would talk, and one of the times it was talking to my mother's voice I heard her call it Dr Jones. This voice called Dr Jones had an unusual speech pattern, and stuttered when trying to say certain soft consonants like 'w' or 'm'.<br />
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I was very tired of being this pain, and Dr Jones' voice was talking to my mother's voice. I was also very tired of Dr Jones' voice. It wouldn't let me drift back into the black where it didn't hurt so much, and it was saying, "I'm sorry. I don't think he w-w-w-will m-m-m-m-make it through the n-n-n-n-night." Then the voices drifted away.<br />
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A nurse's voice was saying, "Guy, honey, we're going to move you out to a hall room where it'll be quieter for you."<br />
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I was raging. The parts of me that weren't the pain were screaming. I didn't want to go out to the hall rooms. That was where they took you to die. For the only time when the pain was everything I found a voice, and am told I kept saying, "No. I want to stay here. No. No." Mom's voice came through and said not to move me without her or Dad's permission, and they or I drifted away again.<br />
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It was a bright, sunny day and I was awake. I did not wake up—and did not remember being asleep—but I was in obviously in a hospital bed and it was a bright, sunny day. I was, however, incredibly tired. I didn't want to sleep, I just didn't have any energy. And the pain didn't exist. Dad was reading a story from a "New Yorker" to me. When he turned the page he looked up, and kind of jumped when he saw me looking at him.<br />
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"Hazel!"<br />
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Mom was over by the sink talking to a nurse. They came running over. By the time they got to my bed Dad was standing up next to me petting me on the head like I was a puppy or something. Everyone seemed to be a lot more excited about me being in the hospital than I thought necessary, but Dad's work-hard hand felt exceptionally good.<br />
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Eventually I found out it was almost four weeks later than I thought it should be, and decided I was very, very hungry. It was, in fact, a new month, and Dr Jones and his teammates had been replaced by the new rotation. About a day after the pain disappeared I started urinating blood, and they never, to my knowledge, figured out what caused the hemorrhage. <br />
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A year later I was being admitted for some kind of routine bleed, probably my knee, and after the third year student and intern had done their thing, the first year resident came up to my bed. "You m-m-m-must be Guy."<br />
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I had never seen him before, but I knew that voice. I said, "Hi, Dr Jones."<br />
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I don't usually do disclaimers, but.....<br />
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Dr Jones' name was most definitely not Dr Jones. It could have been, and I did indeed get treated by a couple of Dr Joneses—one, in fact, was the all time worst at starting an IV—but it wasn't.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-5113235383097816442010-01-08T14:44:00.001-07:002010-01-10T22:36:34.683-07:00Going for a ride in the car, car . . .As Chairman Kaga would say, if memory serves me correctly, out of the two hundred fifty some times I have been hospitalized (such an odd word—sounds like I was made into a hospital, but I digress) I have only been in an ambulance twice.<br />
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When I think about it, and about five minutes ago was the first time, I can come up with several reasons. When I was young the town's ambulance was driven by the operator of one of the local funeral homes. As dedicated as he probably was, it was still a bit iffy getting in touch with him, and then there was the expense of a forty-five mile trip to the University Hospitals. Despite what Mr Limbaugh may think or spout, cost is a very limiting factor when the poor are attempting to get health care. Add to that the fact that my parents, I think correctly, felt they could in most cases get me to Ann Arbor far more quickly than an ambulance would.<br />
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To be honest, there was usually no need for the dramatic speeds and sirens of an ambulance. I know that the popular press, and even more learned sources who should know better, usually give the impression that even a pin prick or slightest bump will unleash a veritable torrent of blood washing away whole villages and leaving the little boy lifeless in seconds. Dentists refused to work on me because they were afraid I would bleed uncontrollably from the novocaine injections. Neither my brother nor I got the normal childhood vaccinations because the doctors were afraid they wouldn't be able to stop the bleeding.<br />
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Thankfully it doesn't work quite that way.<br />
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First, when we do our bleeding it isn't for speed. We aren't sprinters. Hemophiliacs are long distance bleeders. Endurance is our strong suit. We don't bleed any faster than anyone else, we bleed longer. That isn't to say that cuts aren't dangerous. They are. But their immediate danger is the same for us as with anyone else. If the average Joe or Jane would bleed to death in seconds or minutes, we will too. Otherwise you've got some time. It's that the pesky things sometimes won't stop bleeding that makes them such a problem.<br />
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Second, small cuts, and the needle punctures from injections, can often be controlled by mechanical means. A good bandage, or sometimes even just the natural pressure from the skin and muscle, will be enough to stop the bleeding, just like in a regular person. Amazing. Of course there are also those times when the damn thing just won't stop. Today an infusion or two of the factor of choice would soon have everything under control, but in the Fifties and Sixties that wasn't an option.<br />
<br />
I knew one kid who lost the end of his finger because a cut wouldn't stop bleeding. His solution was to wrap a rubber band around his finger until it was tight enough to stop the blood flow, and then put a band-aid over it. A week or so later he was in the hospital, I think for an unrelated hemorrhage, and the doctors discovered the end of his finger was very much dead. It was a subtle reminder to the rest of us that tourniquets were not long term solutions.<br />
<br />
To be somewhat fair to those frightened dentists, the inability to get a decent bandage inside the mouth was one of the reasons any kind of oral injury was always problematical. In fact, when I think back on the trips to the hospital before I was in junior high school, it seems like it was usually my mouth that was bleeding, or one of my knees.<br />
<br />
My most thrilling ride (thrilling is as good a word as any for it, it scared my dad and I shitless) to the hospital was in the front seat of our car between Mom and Dad as Mom drove and Dad held a large coffee mug which I bled into. I had once again used the lower part of my face and a large piece of concrete to demonstrate some fundamental physical laws about a mass in motion coming to rest. Dad had already emptied the mug twice out the window by the time we were through Saline, and I had the distinct impression the left hand tires of our old secondhand Plymouth left the ground when we made the turn off of US-12 onto State Road. I know for a fact that as we were going up the normally pedestrian heavy section of State Street between South University Street and Liberty, Dad pleaded with Mom to slow down. Several students also had some passionate things to say to her as they leaped out of the way.<br />
<br />
As for my two rides in an ambulance, the first occurred when I was twelve. The year I was in seventh grade, the first time, was not a real fun period. By the time the school year was over I had been in the hospital for all but twenty days of it. Since the state laws at the time demanded that a student attend an accredited school for at least forty days to qualify for advancement, I got to repeat the seventh grade. The hospital school, and my almost "B" overall grade (pretty good, I thought, considering) didn't count because the hospital school was not accredited. To give everything the proper touch of irony, the hospital school received its accreditation the following year.<br />
<br />
Anyway, I had been in the hospital for several weeks for a hemorrhage which, as usual, I can't remember. On the day after I had come home what started out as a vague, uncomfortable feeling in my lower back had, by lunch time, turned into the worst pain I had ever experienced. As I got older, and more creative, I would have some hemorrhages that would equal, or surpass, this one, but at the moment it was the worst. I couldn't stand up or sit down, and lying down was also impossible.<br />
<br />
Riding in our old Plymouth was clearly not an option, and Dad called the ambulance. To be honest, my memory begins to be real hazy here, but I have the impression of a large hearse-like car, except it seemed to be yellow with a white roof and a large red light on top. The encouraging hearse connotations were only enhanced by the driver being the local mortician. It was, like a hearse, clearly meant just to transport a person's body from one point to another. <br />
<br />
The stretcher was brought in the front door, and the driver and Dad wheeled me out to the ambulance which was parked on our front lawn, close to our front door. I know, or think I know, or at least seem to remember that Dad rode in the back with me, and somewhere in the area a siren was wailing. The next thirty days are rather more vague.<br />
<br />
For those wondering, I was told that I was apparently bleeding in the space between the kidney and the membrane that surrounds it. I don't recommend it.<br />
<br />
The next time I was in an ambulance was about forty years later.<br />
<br />
I had been feeling very run down. We had moved to Arizona just a short while before, and I had not yet been seen by my new doctor. After taking my shower that morning I was so weak I couldn't even dry myself, and fell onto the bed exhausted. After a while I called my boss and told her not to expect me that day, and then called my doctor. They said they would squeeze me in. After resting again I got dressed and my wife drove me to the doctor's office.<br />
<br />
While I was filling out the new patent forms I was surprised to discover I couldn't remember how to spell my name, or where I lived. While I was still puzzling out those details they called my name. We got to the exam room, and the nurse nurse asked me to sit up while she took my blood pressure. I remember telling her I really had to lie down. After that there is this brief interlude where some people and I were sailing a boat somewhere sunny, and then a voice says, "He's got to be bleeding in his gut. You can smell the blood on his breath." That didn't sound right to me.<br />
<br />
I opened my eyes, and there were about six people standing around me, and this guy with sailboats on his tie tells the nurse to call the ambulance and see if anyone was waiting for me in the lobby. I said my wife was out there—she could drive me home, and he said no, I had to go to the hospital. He really seemed to have his mind made up, and I was too tired to argue so I let him have it his way.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later a couple paramedics were loading me into a large, box-like truck that had more medical equipment in it than many of the emergency rooms I had been in. As they drove the three blocks to the hospital one of the paramedics sat next to me taking my blood pressure over and over and asking me all kinds of questions about my name and where I lived and stuff. I didn't think it was an appropriate time for a pop quiz, but still managed to get several of the questions right.<br />
<br />
That night they gave me six units of blood which got various numbers about halfway to where the doctor with the sailboats on his tie wanted them, and I was able to remember how to spell my name. I was rather proud of that.<br />
<br />
About a month later, after a few endoscopic exams, a bit of surgery and a couple stints in ICU, they let me go home. It seems I had had an ulcer that had eaten its way into a, thankfully, small artery. Another thing I don't recommend very highly.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-75472718575273678822009-11-27T16:16:00.000-07:002010-01-10T22:39:02.684-07:00I visited your house again . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvij-Sc75-h2i3Vn5aiCzWXxDnmOCEBZxzG7WFkfj56yTR4zrMmrWUXvghUPIQDgW60umlSiE3SrZPCvh2Rg8lPm7etksZJRLlOUOF0ucFSzcuVhdILuJBxhxza3fxsHW9rp6_qOqPVCb/s1600/Guy+Fowler+in+Band+Uniform.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtvij-Sc75-h2i3Vn5aiCzWXxDnmOCEBZxzG7WFkfj56yTR4zrMmrWUXvghUPIQDgW60umlSiE3SrZPCvh2Rg8lPm7etksZJRLlOUOF0ucFSzcuVhdILuJBxhxza3fxsHW9rp6_qOqPVCb/s320/Guy+Fowler+in+Band+Uniform.jpg" /></a>My maternal grandfather was born on the 10th of August, 1874. I know nothing about his ancestors except for the names of his parents, but he was, as it turned out, a bleeder. I don't know if his family used the term 'hemophiliac,' or if they even knew the term, but by the time my mother was born in 1919 he had been diagnosed as having hemophilia.<br />
<br />
There is a family story that when he was about five or so he was kicked by a horse or a mule. Like so many family legends it will often get bogged down at this point while various aunts argue the finer points of the animal's species. Horse or mule, the upshot of the episode was that the kick dislocated his hip. The treatment for this kind of injury was, I have been told, fairly basic. A couple of burly men take firm hold of the patient's torso while another pulls on the leg until the joint slips back together. Not an altogether pleasant way to spend an afternoon.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The story goes on to say that by the time said treatment could be administered Granddad's hip had swollen so much relocating his hip was impossible. No one now living knows how long he hemorrhaged, but based on my own experience I would imagine it was two or three months, minimum. I never had, or at least don't remember having, a hip hemorrhage until my teenage/young adult years; but I had plenty of knee bleeds, and they were very often treated only with ice and bed rest. Granddad's family might not have had access to ice in Cobden, Il, around 1890, so I would imagine his treatment consisted almost entirely of staying as quiet as possible. If he was really lucky they might have given him some kind of opiate for the pain, but I'm not betting on it. Even into the late 1960s the attitude was 'tough it out, it's not that bad.'<br />
<br />
If they only knew.<br />
<br />
The usual time span for a typical knee hemorrhage was five to six weeks of active bleeding, and then two or three weeks for the blood to be reabsorbed and the swelling to subside. Since I never did the kind of damage to my knees that Granddad's hip suffered I'm guessing he was laid up for a correspondingly longer period.<br />
<br />
What happens when a hemorrhage is not treated with the relatively new factors (if something was invented after I graduated from high school it is relatively new) is the bleeding continues until the internal pressures are great enough to make it stop. If the flesh around the hemorrhage can still expand, it keeps bleeding. If it's a soft tissue bleed in the arm or leg the hemorrhage can build up enough pressure to cut off the blood supply to the lower part of the limb and cause very bad things to happen. (I think it's called compartmentalization or compartment syndrome.) When Granddad was a boy death would be the most likely very bad thing to happen.<br />
<br />
Anyway, by the time Granddad's hip stopped bleeding and the swelling went down it was no longer possible to reset his hip, and that leg was effectively several inches shorter than the other. He had a very pronounced limp for the rest of his life. It was like the gimpy walk Walter Brennen had on "The Real McCoys" except more so.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ2uLPg1qBKF6P-3eVkicOlYDPiHK3sivIEMkSs97EnMfyLX8GoGpUbLdSy0GcwlTrCThHFwWWPU0_wbVMhUskcPNUr5HkJyoAzDzI3mfBWnR6YXy7cbMG9dbQ908EVEYWDkhYZ7CHFvv_/s1600/G+Fowler%27s+Tack+Shop_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ2uLPg1qBKF6P-3eVkicOlYDPiHK3sivIEMkSs97EnMfyLX8GoGpUbLdSy0GcwlTrCThHFwWWPU0_wbVMhUskcPNUr5HkJyoAzDzI3mfBWnR6YXy7cbMG9dbQ908EVEYWDkhYZ7CHFvv_/s320/G+Fowler%27s+Tack+Shop_1.jpg" /></a>Being alive at the end of the Nineteenth Century and first half of the Twentieth Century, Granddad was not overwhelmed with agencies clamoring to help him. If you were a cripple at that time and didn't have an anomaly weird enough for a side show, either your family supported you or you made your way as best you could. When he had a bleed he still had to go to work. Eventually he learned the cobbler's trade, and was able to set up a shoe and tack shop up, but again, when he couldn't work because of a hemorrhage the kids didn't eat, and there were five of them. This meant that most of the times he had a bleed he just bit down harder on a cut of tobacco and did the work anyway. The cake chewing tobacco he chewed habitually was, to put it mildly, god-awful nasty stuff. He let me try it once when I was about four, and Mom was in the other room, and I gagged for half an hour. That stuff would have distracted me from almost any pain right up to and including open heart surgery.<br />
<br />
One of the more fun things that happens during a joint hemorrhage is that the blood hanging out in the joint leaches calcium out of the bones of the joint, along with doing damage to membranes and generally not playing nice. Having nothing more to do with this calcium the blood then deposits it on various bits of the softer tissue like the cartilage. Then, when you start using the joint again, even within its new limited range of motion, the crusty bits the calcium has formed with the cartilage break off and float around in the joint. Before my knees were replaced in 1992 they felt like two badly filled sand bags, and sometimes sounded like badly filled sand bags.<br />
<br />
Sometimes a bigger piece will get lodged in the working part of the joint and just shut it down completely. It's the biological equivalent of throwing a wrench (spanner for those east of the Atlantic) into the gear works. The joint is locked up until you can work that piece out of where it is, which usually means grinding it and bits of bone and stuff against each other until it all works loose. Once again, this is not a happy thought producing activity. The upshot of all of this is that it all hurts. All the time. A lot. This isn't a new to the job, unsure of itself pain. It knows what it is doing, and does it well.<br />
<br />
Mom and her oldest brother both say that when he would have a bleed he would still walk to his shop and put in a full day's work. I can't imagine how that felt, or how much extra damage to his joints it caused. By the time I was crawling around his living room floor he had developed a reputation for being a cantankerous, irascible, old man. His ability to suffer fools was not a strong point. One time when Mom was wondering what had made him so grouchy, I told her I was amazed he was as easy going as he was.<br />
<br />
"Easy going! You might think so, but he was worse than an old papa bear."<br />
<br />
Not knowing the irascibility levels of elderly bear fathers I skipped over that, and said, "Mom, I have a pretty good clue to how much his legs hurt. I'm surprised he wasn't up on that water tower with a rifle."<br />
<br />
She just kind of looked at me. Being young, and therefore all-knowing, I went on, "And if the pain wasn't enough to make him mean, not being allowed to spit would really do it." My grandmother tolerated Granddad's tobacco chewing, but she would not allow him to spit in the house or yard.<br />
<br />
He died on the 15th of April, 1961. That was, if I have my history right, the year Factor IX was identified. If he had lived a year or so longer he might have discovered he wasn't a "classic hemophiliac" after all, but had what was then called Christmas Disease. Years ago I saw his death certificate, and listed along with old age as cause of death was abdominal hemorrhages. My private opinion is that the chewing tobacco he constantly chewed, and swallowed, was probably a major contributor to their presence. Mom has a slightly different theory.<br />
<br />
Our family finances at the time of his death only allowed for Mother to make the trip back to Oregon for his funeral. A few days after she returned I asked her what had finally killed him. She made a couple of harrumphing type sounds of dismissal and said, "Oh, they talked about 'old age' and this and that, but I think the real reason was he had outlived all the people he wanted to piss off."gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-87507629887243778482009-11-09T00:49:00.002-07:002009-11-18T17:01:30.251-07:00All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1IFpxreULud5ABykAj2kPN3mqUbPNmeAjjHbZCtlHEJ6ZGTqTHXs3zqu4VKPA52bXOMjPbi8t8kUB0F1aWEGwa_8FFq0Gd0K1vGEEpC8ZoNZqvm5Id5R7KGLoaRe118-b8qcWBarvfAI/s1600-h/bigstockphoto_Vintage_Dentist_S_Chair_2936426.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg1IFpxreULud5ABykAj2kPN3mqUbPNmeAjjHbZCtlHEJ6ZGTqTHXs3zqu4VKPA52bXOMjPbi8t8kUB0F1aWEGwa_8FFq0Gd0K1vGEEpC8ZoNZqvm5Id5R7KGLoaRe118-b8qcWBarvfAI/s320/bigstockphoto_Vintage_Dentist_S_Chair_2936426.jpg" /></a>Until I was about ten or eleven it seems that every hemorrhage I had was either my knee, usually the left, or something to do with my face. On one trip to the doctor after using my nose and mouth to break a particularly hard fall he asked me, "Have you got something against your face, son?" When I was a toddler all my pictures for about an eighteen month period show a large, bruised lump in the middle of my forehead.<br />
<br />
Cutting teeth always seems to be a very worrisome time for the parents of guys with hemophilia. (For the record, I detest the word hemophiliac—I know it just means a person who has hemophilia, but I hate the way it sounds) Anyway, in my family, and for many others I've talked to it has always been almost disappointingly uneventful. My younger brother and I seeped a tiny bit around a couple teeth for a couple days and that was about it. At last report my grandson did the same.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>This is strictly a layman's opinion, has absolutely no scientific basis, and is based on purely anecdotal observations of a few incidents (which of course means it is as well thought out as most miracle diets and bowel cleansers), but I think the baby's gums are programed to open and slide around the tooth which is why they don't bleed as much as you might expect. The next kid I meet will probably blow that out of the water, but until then that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.<br />
<br />
The real fun started when you started losing your baby teeth to make way for the big boys. I seemed to have started later than some, and when I about ten I had a couple back molars that just refused to come out. I would worry it with my tongue until Mom caught me, and then start up again as soon she turned around. My parents tested its hold, and decided it was more firmly attached than they felt they could comfortably pull; and the local dentist agreed.<br />
<br />
At some point it was decided that I should go to the hospital and have them pull it. My assertions that it really didn't bother me didn't seem to have any impact on the decision. So, I was admitted to the hospital, my arm was taped down to an arm board, an IV was started and I was given some AHG. I would continue to get AHG every few hours for the next week or so. After dinner, which seemed to be heavy on the broth and jello, and fairly light on things like meat and potatoes, they hung the NPO sign over my bed, and I was officially condemned to a night of starvation. I didn't even get an evening snack, and I can't tell you the importance of the 8:00pm glass of grapefruit juice and the two gram crackers. Not only did the flavor clash between the juice and the crackers usually cause the muscles on the left side of my jaw to lock up; searching for the larger cracker crumbs could take up half the night. At midnight one of the nurse's aids took my water pitcher away, and made veiled threats against my immortal soul if I even looked in the direction of food or drink until after my surgery.<br />
<br />
"Surgery!"<br />
<br />
"Yeah, you are scheduled for surgery at 11:30."<br />
<br />
"But I can't have surgery! I'm a bleeder!" This was awful. Worse.<br />
<br />
This was around 1957or 1858. I had had one good case of tonsillitis a while back, and in a couple years I'd have a real bang up case of appendicitis with the Chief of General Surgery and my real hematologist checking me, in person, every hour. In both cases they gave me large, frequent injections of antibiotics, and were hoping for the best. At that time if you had hemophilia the only time you went into surgery was if it was certain you would die anyway. When they were trying to decide if my appendix had to come out I wasgiven the ever so encouraging pep talk of, "Don't worry, Guy, Dr Fry is our oldest, most experienced surgeon. He might not be the fastest anymore, but he is the most accurate. He'll probably be able to go in there and get that thing out through a 3/4 inch incision." I still have what's left of my tonsils, and didn't give up that appendix until well into middle age.<br />
<br />
Around 10:30 that night an intern came in to do what he was supposed to do that afternoon but forgot. He explained that my tooth would be removed by an oral surgeon in one of the oral surgery operating rooms. It all had to do with, as Douglas Adams called them, clearly marked lines of demarcation. This was the removal of a tooth which meant the oral surgery department had to do it. Since it was their job it would be done on their turf. I felt much better. This was hospital politics as I had come to know them.<br />
<br />
The next day I went down to oral surgery to have my tooth pulled. That morning they put me in one of those hospital gowns instead of the usual jeans, t-shirt and socks which meant I had to be very careful if I wanted to read lying on my stomach. I read comic books while the other kids ate breakfast. Of course it was my favorite hospital breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. Now, I wouldn't have been able to have my favorite breakfast anyway because when my mouth was bleeding I was always put on a light, clear diet. It was just the principle of the thing. For those who might not have had the pleasure, a clear diet was exactly that. Everything they gave you was see through. It consisted of various arrangements of tea, coffee, 7-Up, consumé, broth (the distinction between those two was rather fine) and lots and lots of Jello, usually red.<br />
<br />
Somewhere around 10:00 the nurse came in and gave me a fresh piece of the gauze to bite down on all the time. Whenever I came in with busted lips, a badly bitten tongue, or bleeding teeth they would pack my mouth with this gauze that tasted like highly medicinal crap, but crap none the same. On a normal day it would serve to clean your mouth of the taste of the consumé.<br />
<br />
At 12:30 I got to watch the other kids chow down on what was my all time favorite meal in the hospital. It was bean soup. Now, contrary to popular belief the hospital made a number of truly excellent dishes. Their custards were wonderful, and the cream puffs beyond belief. They also made things that were not so good. The swordfish steak just looked completely wrong, and you only ordered the hamburger if you needed a weapon. But their soups were the best, if you didn't count the consumé and the broth, and the bean soup was the absolute best. Even the guys in the Senate Dining Room in Washington didn't get soup that good, and when I could have it I always got three bowls.<br />
<br />
After a couple more delays two transporters came to get me a bit after two. They put me on a stretcher, and then put a blanket over me, and once again I began to feel this was going to be a much bigger deal than they were telling me. Leaving the ward we went down the main corridor to a corridor that crossed it at its center point. We turned left and after fifty feet or so stopped at an elevator. This elevator was strictly for taking patients to places they very often didn't want to go. You could go down to Physical Therapy, or X-ray or to the fourth floor and the surgical suites. As it turned out we went passed the fourth floor down to, I think, one of the basements.<br />
<br />
Once in the right place a nurse had me change into an even cleaner gown, and she tied one of those surgical caps on my head so that it came down over my ears. Then they wheeled me into the surgery. In it was the largest dentist's chair I have ever seen, and from the chips and bangs to its enamel it didn't look like it had had a very peaceful existence. There was the usual pillar next to it with what appeared to be an extensive collection of drills, lights, trays and other things I wasn't real comfortable looking at.<br />
<br />
On the trays next to the chair were several pairs of pliers of various sizes and more sharp, pointy things than I ever really wanted to see along with enough very large syringes to numb an angry elephant and have enough left to subdue any rhinos that happen by. And there, along side some pliers with jaws designed to get a death grip on just about any number of items, none of them body parts, were some saws. Saws for Hector's sake. They had brought in saws to take out a baby tooth that was hanging on to a bit of flesh the size of a obese rice grain. <br />
<br />
A nurse done up in full surgical kit of scrubs, gown, hat, mask, and gloves was fussing with the placement of the sharp, pointy things. After a few minutes the surgeon came in and another nurse put his gloves on him, just like on "Medic" with Richard Boone. He also had the whole costume on. He was very serious, and said something to the nurse guarding the sharp, pointy things, and then he sat down on a stool and said, "Okay, young man, let's see what we're up against here."<br />
<br />
By that time I was in the same mental state a deer in the headlights is in. I knew something was coming, but I didn't know what and I really didn't want it to happen but I couldn't stop it.<br />
<br />
He looked in my mouth for a bit, wiggled the tooth with his finger, and then sighed. The nurse with the sharp pointy things was holding a syringe the size of my forearm in one hand. I swear the needle was at least ten inches long. In her other hand she had chosen one of the medium sized pliers, which to my eyes meant it was perfect for dealing with a hippo's tusk. "Oh, brother," I thought, "this is going to be bad." When doctors sighed like that it always meant they didn't like what they were going to do and it was going to hurt. The reason doctors didn't like doing those things wasn't because they were going to hurt, but because it meant the patient was going to be less than cooperative.<br />
<br />
Then he completely confused me. He leaned back for a second and then took his cap off and pulled the mask down. Winked at me and said, "I think I can handle this." and before I could even wince, I felt a sting when he pulled the tooth out with his fingers. He looked at the tooth, looked in my mouth, put more of that bad tasting gauze where the tooth had been, said "Take care of yourself, champ." and left.<br />
<br />
A few minutes later some transporters (two guys, not the Star Trek kind) took me back to 6-West.<br />
<br />
I think the nurse was angry because she didn't get to hand the surgeon any sharp, pointy things.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-4762085100202200622009-11-07T16:54:00.000-07:002009-11-18T17:00:59.107-07:00They call the wind . . .In a past post I mentioned I had two Hallowe'en stories I wanted to tell. Since Hallowe'en is over, and Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I think I should probably get around to the second story. As for Hallowe'en here, it came and went with nary a 'boo.' We have had our fifth straight year (as opposed to all those sexually deviant ones, I guess) without a Trick or Treater, which is a good thing since I haven't bothered to buy candy for the last three. And before I move on, what is the correct spelling for one who goes Trick or Treating? Does it end with '-or' like actor, creator, and facilitator; or does it end with '-er' like singer, engineer, and teacher? Microsoft's dictionary detests both (which is enough to make me want to use both), and I don't find the term in my <i>American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language</i> (4th ed) although it does list the past tense, or perhaps the passive voiced, 'trick or treated.'<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Anyway, this particular story takes place on 6-West. The sixth floor was the top floor for the wings that held the wards, the seventh and eighth floors being the domain of the hospital school, recreation rooms and the much feared Contagious Diseases department. Little was known, at least by us bleeders, about the Contagious Diseases area except we were fairly sure that was where people with TB, meningitis, hepatitis and polio were sent. It was the one place in the whole hospital that truly frightened me. Probably because there were always several iron lungs scattered about the halls. Even empty, or perhaps especially empty, those were amazingly sinister, terrifying machines. That there are people who have spent upwards of fifty years in one of those canisters is almost beyond my understanding.<br />
<br />
Be that as it may, the reason it is important to know that 6-West (later, through no fault of its own, renamed 10-West) was on the top floor is because of the windows. The hospital's windows, having been built somewhere around WWI, were wooden casement windows that actually opened, and there was quite a bit of play between the window and its sill. When the wind was right, which meant pretty much anything but a dead calm, the windows out on the sun porch would vibrate in their sills which would often cause them to sound like long, ghostly moans and groans. During the day there was so much noise and activity in the ward that you didn't notice them, but at night after lights out those moans coming from the sun porch were very loud.<br />
<br />
Quite often, after lights out which was around 8:30 or 9:00, we would talk quietly for a while. We were, after all, mature almost adults of eleven or twelve—some of us had even started puberty—and didn't need as much sleep as we did when we were kids. We'd tell jokes, talk about our homes and schools, stuff that had happened that day, and tell stories. And just like camp the creepier the better. If there was a new kid on the ward he or she would almost always ask what that noise coming from the sun porch was.<br />
<br />
We, being kind and understanding, knew just how scared the new kid would be in this huge, gloomy room; perhaps away from home for the first time in their life, and dealing with some kind of very serious illness or injury. It was enough to frighten anyone. So we would tell them that it was the ghost of a boy who had died on the sun porch one night many years ago. His name was Bobby, and he moaned like that because he was lonely, and if you went out on the sun porch at night he would get you to be his playmate.<br />
<br />
I mentioned in another post that just outside the main doors to the ward, out by the nurses' station, was a restroom. Well,there was another restroom for patients at the other end of the ward, but to get to it you had to go onto the sun porch. The new kid would tell us we were lying, and there was no such things as ghosts, and they weren't afraid; but after lights out no one, not even the kids in the beds next to the sun porch ever used that restroom. They all made the long walk to the one out by the nurses' station.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, after a particularly loud and drawn out moan, the kid would ask if Bobby ever came into the ward, and we would reassure him that no, so far he had never done that but he seemed to be getting more and more lonely so who knew what would happen?<br />
<br />
One year, I think it was the year after the great pumpkin war, we were celebrating Devil's Night by telling ghost stories. The nurse had been in once and told us to keep things quiet—she didn't want us waking the younger kids up. The girl across from me had just finished a pretty creepy story, and the sun porch windows were moaning and groaning like crazy. All of us were checking the shadows pretty closely.<br />
<br />
I started telling a story I had heard on a Boy Scout campout. I was doing a good job of making it eerie, the wind was howling outside, and Bobby was moaning perfectly. Just as I got to the climax of the story, the girl across from me screamed like a banshee on fire.<br />
<br />
There were now approximately seventeen wet beds on the ward.<br />
<br />
The girl was having some kind of seizure. The scream had been so loud it was like a physical blow, and by the time our ears stopped ringing and we started breathing again she had fallen out of her bed and was having convulsions on the floor. A third year med student and an intern came running into the ward, and by the time they got to her she had worked her way down to the foot of her bed.<br />
<br />
One second she would be curled up in a tight ball, and the next second she would slam out so straight her back would be bowed. The student, showing more intelligence than I had ever seen in a student or most interns, knelt down by her head and tried to keep her from slamming it into the granite floor when she would straighten out.<br />
<br />
The intern wasn't quite as bright.<br />
<br />
During one of the moments she was curled up in a fetal position, he squatted down like a catcher. In front of her feet. About then a first year resident came onto the ward, but before he could say anything she straightened out. She slammed into the intern like a giant plunger in a pinball machine. Her feet hit him directly on target, and he doubled up and slid on his back the twenty-some feet until he hit the foot of my bed. Then he kind of fell over on his side with both of his hands holding what was left of his more private parts.<br />
<br />
By that time the girl's seizure had ended and she was lying limply on the floor. The nurse and student were tending to her. The resident knelt down and checked her out, then came over to my bed. He made some comment about me being the cause of all this, and then said, "I bet you pee'd your bed."<br />
<br />
I said, "Not really."<br />
<br />
Then he looked down at the intern and said, "You gonna live?"<br />
<br />
The intern was still lying doubled up on his side, clutching his groin, and the only sound he made was a kind of tight, high squeak. I knew that sound. I had made it that summer when my feet had slipped off the pedals and I had hit the crossbar of my bike. It had taken me what seemed like an hour and a half to be able to breathe again. I think it took the intern a bit longer.<br />
<br />
They got the girl back in her bed, changed a couple of the wetter beds, and made vague but very dire threats about what would happen if we didn't go to sleep. The next morning as they made rounds the resident caused the third year resident a moment's confusion when he asked me if my sheets had dried yet; and the intern was walking with a strange kind of bow legged waddle and cringed violently if anything went toward his waist.<br />
<br />
I asked the intern if he thought my story might have caused the girl's seizure—I had spent most of the night worrying about it—and he assured me I had nothing to do with it. It would have happened no matter what we were doing. The girl had a pretty bad headache that day, but didn't remember anything about the seizure, and went home about a week later. I never did know why she was in the hospital.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-44823112786701117512009-10-19T00:15:00.000-07:002009-10-19T00:20:23.606-07:00I hurt easy, I just don't show it . . .It has been brought to my attention that I expend a lot of energy giving hemophilia a rather rosy glow. It seems I give the humorous incidents precedent, and attempt to keep the painful truths behind a curtain, safely out of sight. That perhaps I trivialize the condition to the detriment of all those who must struggle with its realities every day. How can I expect society to understand the seriousness of our pain and struggles if I keep talking about Castor oil induced fifty yard dashes, and making crippling knee hemorrhages sound like an everyday occurrence not worthy of treatment. I am making light of the most devastating thing to ever happen to these people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Several short, pithy answers immediately spring to mind when I get confronted with these kinds of accusations, but aside from the immediate emotional satisfaction I would experience, they would really solve nothing if I were to utter them. The truth, as I see it, is that I cannot make anyone not living the life understand it. Once you get beyond the glamorous bleeding and the dramatic joint destruction, ours is a surprisingly private hell. The sudden, even life threatening bleeds that come when they are least convenient can be dealt with. They are frightening, but we learn how to handle them and the fear. But there are those little, half-perceived secret things that flit through our minds, and even in the most well adjusted of us there is a constant worry always simmering just below full consciousness. <i>I feel weak. Are my kidneys bleeding again? Do I have another ulcer? I don't think I can take another endoscopic exam. That damn left knee is puffy. Could it be infected again. Or is it bleeding. What was that twinge in my ankle? Oh, damn, not another ankle bleed. I can't write when I'm taking morphine.</i> <i>Shit, I hate accessing that port.</i> And it goes on and on and on. How do I write that so that it is presentable, and more importantly, understandable.<br />
<br />
One of the best nurses I was ever lucky enough to have care for me when I was very young said something that completely shaped my life. She said, "Happiness is public. It draws people to you. Pain is private. It pushes them away." And since by nature I tend to be almost annoyingly optimistic, and do not worry too much about the darker aspects of my life, at least when there are witnesses, it is hard for me to recreate the trauma. I feel I have presented the nastier aspects of the condition honestly, and forthrightly when they have come up in the narrative. Surely a reader with half of an imagination will be able to construct his or her own version of the emotions I felt when a girl's father and her monseigneur both told her it would be a sin to date me, because I was cursed by God with this affliction, or wasn't allowed to join the Cub Scouts because I was a cripple and a drain on society. (The guy all but said Hitler had the right idea.) It is my strongly held opinion that I shouldn't be expected to bring all those feelings out for the entertainment of the masses. A simple reporting of the event should suffice. The color commentary I leave to the reader.<br />
<br />
Finally, it is my considered opinion that the average person internalizes the kind of message I'm trying to send more completely when there is humor involved. <i>Huckleberry Finn</i> did more than practically any other book to humanize the slaves in the average Americans mind BECAUSE it presented a the quiet, regular moments in a man's life, along with the silly and humorous. It wasn't the big obscenities of slavery that made Jim a Human, it was, among other things, the nights he and Huck would lie on their backs and watch the stars; and it was only by seeing this person as a decent, average man—near enough like you to enable you to understand him—that allowed slavery to be seen as the obscenity it was. And like Mr Clemens, but with considerably less skill and talent, that is what I am trying to do. Show that we are just people who take senior trips, do stupid things because we have girl friends, have to take Army physicals, and just generally lead the same kind of dull, probably meaningless lives everybody else leads, but with blood that won't clot. <br />
<br />
It's a bizarre world out there, and every attempt to make it serious and dependable just forces it to be that much more bizarre and weird. So embrace the silly.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-53286937014517530292009-10-16T13:05:00.002-07:002009-10-19T00:21:49.088-07:00The zombies were having fun . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpAaa9ZSgtxzRmy9mzzetRo4UJc5p58KQvV_4aYL0bJgV7BsGRvHeEp_YM62XSeNKTcVq7QRkLH-hYm3AHi3-EbdfHTnJ6CB21-BoYcqnBWOCUixfVUeVb5-63VW4bq6u47efqTQfB1mGq/s1600-h/bigstockphoto_A_Jack_O_Lantern_901112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpAaa9ZSgtxzRmy9mzzetRo4UJc5p58KQvV_4aYL0bJgV7BsGRvHeEp_YM62XSeNKTcVq7QRkLH-hYm3AHi3-EbdfHTnJ6CB21-BoYcqnBWOCUixfVUeVb5-63VW4bq6u47efqTQfB1mGq/s320/bigstockphoto_A_Jack_O_Lantern_901112.jpg" /></a>I have two Halloween stories I want to tell. At first I was going to do both of them in one long, involved post, but I know that many people—my wife, primarily—cannot, or will not, read anything longer than two or three paragraphs on a computer screen. (And yet, she can spend hours examining and comparing spread sheets the size of Texas until she finds the one tiny discrepancy that shows someone somewhere did something naughty. Go figure.) So in the interests of those people—my wife, primarily—I will tell them in two separate posts that are only sort of long, and not very, by my standards, involved.<br />
<br />
The first one involves jack-o-lanterns. Every year around the first week of October each kid on 6-West would get a small pumpkin which we would then carve into the scariest, or weirdest, jack-o-lantern we could manage. The jack-o-lantern would then sit on our bedside stand until a few days after Halloween.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Attentive readers will already have noticed that those pumpkins would be on those bedside stands for three or four weeks. In a ward that always seemed to be almost too warm. Suffice it to say that by the time Halloween was immanent they were well past their prime. Rotten might be too strong a word, but they were definitely ripe. The ward would take on an odor with strong compost pile notes; but then, the ward had so many odors that you really didn't want to identify, that one more was not too alarming. (In all the hospitals I've ever been in hygiene has been a strange and mysterious thing. My advice is to never, ever let your bare skin touch anything, especially the floor, outside your bed—and don't trust the stuff in your bed all that much.)<br />
<br />
This particular October was one of the few times my younger brother and I were in the hospital at the same time. You would think that with all the hemorrhages we both had we would have been in the hospital at the same time a lot. Not so. Even though we tended to have entirely different kinds of hemorrhages it is one of those strange twists of the universe that they didn't overlap just a bit more than they did. Whatever the reason, this was one of the three or four times we were in the hospital together. As usual, I have absolutely no idea what was bleeding in either of us.<br />
<br />
Mert was actually two or three beds down from me. We were close enough that we could talk, and exchange comic books and stuff by tossing them to the kid between us to pass on, but far enough apart that we wouldn't get on each others nerves. Mom came up to see us every afternoon, and I think it was a little unsettling for her having to go back and forth between the beds, but otherwise it was just another trip to the hospital.<br />
<br />
It must have happened during the "Quiet Time" we had after lunch (it wasn't called a nap in deference to our maturity) when everyone had to be in their beds reading, putting a model together, or talking quietly, or some other quiet, non-rowdy activity. Some of the kids actually slept. 'Quiet' is the operative word here, because if you got loud enough for the nurses to hear you out at the nurses' station they would come in and draw the curtains around everyone's bed. <br />
<br />
Anyway, this particular October afternoon my brother was talking to the kid next to him. At some point the kid on the other side of that kid said something that Mert took umbrage with. This led to an exchange that got a bit more heated with each volley. Pretty soon about four of them were whisper shouting epithets back and forth. At some point one of them said something that Mert decided was beyond a verbal response, and picked up his pumpkin (remember the pumpkins?) and threw it.<br />
<br />
If this had been the first week or so we had them it might have been a serious weapon. Not fatal, but it would have surely left a mark. This was, however, very late in the month, and the pumpkin had the consistency of mashed potatoes. The only thing keeping it from slumping into a mushy pile was the skin which, as it turns out, was not quite up to keeping things together when handled. Those parts of Mert's pumpkin that didn't fall out of his hand onto him went flying off toward the verbal miscreant, but just as the shot from a shotgun spreads as it flies, the portions of the pumpkin that Mert managed to actually throw all took widely varying paths.<br />
<br />
Parts hit the kid in the next bed, parts hit their target or at least his bed, and parts fell into the spaces between beds. Naturally the two who had been fired upon retaliated. Most of those pumpkins landed on Mert's bed and the bed of the kid between us, but a fair sized chunk landed on my comic book. Luckily it was one I had read three or four times. I picked the shrapnel up and tossed it in the general direction of the battle. The now four major combatants were busily throwing whatever pumpkin glop they could reach, at whoever was in range. As the neighboring kids saw what was happening they gleefully joined in.<br />
<br />
One of the unexplored aspects of the hospitalization of kids is that while in the hospital they have very little opportunity to be annoying, little brats. At that time and at that hospital, no one went in for a day, or just overnight. We were in there for three to six weeks usually, and some kids were there for months, and all too often, for the rest of their lives. Six weeks of having to be a brave little fighter, doing everything your told, and being a role model for the rest of the class will soon have the best of kids wondering about emptying the bedpans out the sixth floor window; or dropping water balloons down the nine floors of the main stairways. (For those who jump to conclusions, we couldn't open the windows, and I've been advised that it's probably best if I don't talk about the stairwells.) It is a kid's instinctual need to test every and all limits placed on him, or her, by parents, teachers, and anyone else hellbent on controlling their behavior, including nurses. We have to annoy those people at regular intervals to make sure we can't get away with anything, and, truth be told, to make sure they still care enough to keep us in line.<br />
<br />
Well, the kids on the boys side of the ward released a lot of pent up mischievousness that afternoon.<br />
<br />
The arc of pumpkin volleys traced their way up and down the row of beds for fifteen or twenty minutes with all concerned taking hits, but suffering no real damage, except to our olfactory systems. Everyone's bed looked like a brownish orange biological accident. It had come to the point where there was only one pumpkin left. It was mine. I was saving it for the ultimate shot. The other kids were scrapping together globs of pumpkin guts for their next shot, and trying to build a fort out of a pillow and some comic books.<br />
<br />
Then I saw my shot. It was this smug kid at the end who thought he was a hot shot because his father was going to bring up a color TV for him to watch. He kept telling us how much he would charge us to watch it for a half-hour. They had set TVs up out on the ward before for various reasons, and they had all been spectacularly unwatchable. They had to rely on rabbit ear antennas, and there was so much metal and stone in the building along with a whopping amount of electronic interference, that the best picture usually consisted of one blob, vaguely male, talking to another blob that might, under the right circumstances, be vaguely female. The last time they brought one in I got a headache that lasted into the next day. Anyway, this twit kept talking about how he would soon be watching "American Bandstand" and telling us what Barbara and Christine and the other regulars were wearing; and my pumpkin was for him.<br />
<br />
He was at the near end of the ward next to the linen cart and the main doors to the ward. I was in the next bed. He picked up a handful of glop and threw it. The main bits got me along the side of the head. I had seeds, and the membranes and glop from the center of the pumpkin hanging down the side of my face. He laughed like a hyena. That was his mistake. I had already figured out that if I picked my pumpkin up by its paper plate, and use what was left of the plates sturdiness as a launch platform I would stand a good chance of getting the entire gourd or squash or whatever it was, to my target. While he was busy laughing at the pumpkin guts on the side of my face I carefully lifted my missile by its slightly soggy base. Then I let fly. He was looking down at that moment, and the pumpkin got him squarely on the top of the head. It was beautiful. When he looked up at me he was wearing the cutest, little behive shaped pumpkin gut wig. A fair portion of the gourd had ended up in the linen cart, and I knew that spelled trouble, and perhaps doom, if they figured out who threw what.<br />
<br />
By that time the rest of the battle had pretty much ended due to the ammunition being spread fairly evenly over most surfaces on the boys' side of the ward. Most of us were grinning that grin you do when you know you've done something that is very definitely going to get you killed, but it was soo much fun you just couldn't not do it.<br />
<br />
About then one of the nurses came in. She walked about ten feet into the ward and stopped. She looked up and down the boys' side of the ward. She closed her eyes, shook her head and looked again. Then she looked at the girls' side. It was clean and neat, with no sign of the great pumpkin war. She closed her eyes, opened them slowly and looked at the boys' side again. I won't transcribe her exact words here. Suffice it to say that it was the first time I ever heard a woman say that particular word. I was shocked.<br />
<br />
Then she went back out to the desk to call the troops in.<br />
<br />
In about five seconds three RNs, two nurse's aides, and four students came in along with two guys from housekeeping. I can tell you that a group of nurses in full crisis mode will put any SWAT team in the nation to shame with their organization, focus on the objective, and their attitude that one shot, one kill can, and will, be done more efficiently. Getting clean sheets was the real problem. The afternoon linen cart only had enough sheets, blankets and pillowcases to repair the occasional accident. They could deal with two, perhaps three, complete bed changes. This meant they would have to borrow from the other wards. That was the bit that really caused the ax to fall. They hated having to borrow from the other wards, because payback was always so . . . tricky. They sent negotiators out to five other wards, but it was a tense situation. Eventually the needed supplies arrived and the ward clerk made careful notes concerning who had loaned what.<br />
<br />
First, wet washcloths and towels were passed out, and we were told to get clean, and we were given pajamas to change into. When one of the guys said it was too early to put on pajamas the nurse just looked at him with one eyebrow arching about two inches higher than the other. He decided not to pursue the issue. Then, those of us who could walk were told to strip their filthy sheets off and remake their bed with clean sheets. Being able to only use one hand because of an IV, or anything else, was no excuse; and the corners had better be done correctly. Those of us who could not walk had their sheets changed by the nurses, and it was done with all the 'vigor' they could muster without causing injury. <br />
<br />
The head nurse announced that there would be no deserts that night; but the real punishment came when we saw the smug looks on the girls' faces when they were taken up to the recreation room for that afternoon's activities, and we were told our "rest period" was extended until the next morning.<br />
<br />
It was a long afternoon.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-19572414478069415822009-10-03T11:23:00.003-07:002009-10-10T22:38:43.605-07:00When there's too much of nothin', no one has control . . .I have been mulling over this post for quite some time. Not simply because it is embarrassing. If I stopped telling stories just because they were embarrassing I would have about four and a half minutes of not quite boring material. Nor is my reluctance cause by the subject matter. With a bit of finesse the subject can be presented in a manner that is only slightly offensive and mildly scatological. No, the reason I haven't gotten to it, like the reason we don't do so many things is: it's hard.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>To tell this story correctly I have to once again describe the layout of the University of Michigan's Hospitals in a manner that is at the same time simple and complete, and—and this is the tricky bit—not be mind-numbingly boring at the same time. Let's face it. I've already written so much about the layout of the place that the two or three regular readers I have are probably currently clicking on a link to something vastly more interesting and exciting like the "Forty-seven Beige Walls" page. The physical description is, however, vital because part of the terror of the moment was due solely to the scale of the place coupled with a building design a good thirty years out of date.<br />
<br />
The other problem, which is no less important, is that I have had a bloody hard time thinking of some song lyrics which would make a snappy, suggestive title for the piece.<br />
<br />
It was my junior year at college. Things had been going along swimmingly until I noticed one morning that my urine looked exactly like whole blood. Now, even when it's happened before, and you know what's happening, peeing blood snaps your mind right off the one or two blurry concepts it was fumbling with, like which day was it and was that paper on "The Wasteland" due that morning, and bringing the thick, reddish brown liquid that was supposed to be a clear, pale yellow into sharp focus. I had started having hemorrhages in and around my kidneys when I was thirteen, and it looked like I was having another one. They usually occurred when I was under a lot of stress, and, for some inexplicable reason, in the spring, but often, like that morning, for no apparent reason at all.<br />
<br />
There was a period around eighth or ninth grade when I often wouldn't say anything when one started. They weren't painful, and going to the hospital for three or four weeks would interfere mightily with a lot of other things I wanted to do. Then one day Dr Penner happened to mention that a young man in Pennsylvania or New Jersey or some similar place, who also had frequent kidney bleeds, had died of kidney failure. After that I was a lot more conscientious about reporting any blood in my urine.<br />
<br />
Anyway. That morning I hitch-hiked over to Ann Arbor and got admitted to the hospital. Since I was technically an adult I was put on 8-West along with seventeen other men suffering from leukemia, psoriasis, and prostate problems. (I'm not making light of my ward-mates conditions. As painful, crippling, and just plain awful as many of our hemorrhages were, us bleeders often had the least devastating problems on the ward. We at least had a fighting chance of surviving. At that time a lot of those guys, especially the ones with leukemia, didn't.) A few of my professors decided I was going to miss too many classes and gave me withdrawals, but a couple just sent a stack of books and told me to write a paper.<br />
<br />
Eventually the hemorrhage stopped and everything was, so to speak, clear sailing. The papers, however, were in that nebulous stage somewhere between nearly finished and just about started. Since the bleeding was over it meant it was time for the dreaded IVP. The initials 'IVP' stand for something or other, but it boils down to having a dye injected and then having your kidneys x-rayed. Now, while the dye usually caused me to have an unpleasant, metallic taste in my mouth, and sometimes caused me to feel suddenly very hot, the actual IVP was not the dreaded part of the thing. It was the preparation.<br />
<br />
To be suitable for viewing your innards had to be almost literally squeaky clean. Apparently the slightest speck of undigested kumquat could obscure vast sections of your intestines, not to mention your kidneys, and the entire procedure would be a failure, wasting the time of a crack team of highly trained and extremely busy radiologists. To prevent this terrible waste of manpower (there were very few female radiologists at that time) you spent the previous day, and a good portion of the night, emptying yourself of everything that wasn't, and one or two things that might have been, connected.<br />
<br />
It started a bit before dinner. The nurse brought a couple pills that would get things moving, and an enema. At first the things the pills got moving was large quantities of air, but they would soon work their way up through the other classical elements of water, earth and fire. (I can't really prove the part about fire, but trust me, eventually it burned.) The enema did what all enemas do, with the added thrill of having a twenty yard dash to the restroom. Then, as if all of this was some kind of demented, hospital aperitif, dinner was served almost immediately. However, instead of the usual meal of overdone meat, underdone potatoes, and a huge wedge of iceberg lettuce with a glob of mayonnaise; you got a 'light' meal of unidentifiable brown liquid which had been given the stage name of 'Consume,' a vague tasting jello—usually red—and tea. This is probably why you survived the night—you didn't have anything solid trying to blast its way out.<br />
<br />
By the way, the excitement of that twenty yard dash gained exponentially as the evening wore on.<br />
<br />
Around 7:00PM the nurse brought what seemed like approximately six gallons of Castor oil with about two tablespoons of orange juice in the glass to highlight the oil's viscous nature. (In reality I believe it was 100cc of Castor oil, but believe me, the subjective and objective truths can be light years apart.) You stirred the two together like a mad man until they pretended to mix, then you drank as much as you could until the juice and the oil separated and your gag reflex kicked in. Usually about a teaspoon.<br />
<br />
Eventually you got it down.<br />
<br />
Eventually you believed it would stay down. <br />
<br />
Then you waited.<br />
<br />
This is where that description of the Eighth Floor comes in. Like I've said before, the wards angled off the end of the main corridor like the arms of a 'Y'. Where the arms joined the stem, as it were, was a nurse's station facing down the main corridor. The arm to the right, as you faced the nurse's station, was the male ward, and just before the doors going into the ward was a door in the right hand wall to a two stall men's room. Behind you as you faced the nurse's station, about fifty yards down the main corridor where another corridor crossed, was an elevator. On one side of the elevator's alcove was the booth for the only pay phone on the floor, which meant it was the only phone patients could use. Just as the powers that be saw no need to clutter up the ward with televisions, they also felt telephones were an unneeded luxury. I think the reasoning was something like, "if you're sick enough to be in here, you're too sick to be making phone calls." Or it could be they just had an aversion to devices that started with "tele-".<br />
<br />
Since I was twenty years old, and madly in love, I, of course, had to talk to my girlfriend. After proving to the nurse that I had indeed finished the Castor oil, and not hidden it under my pillow, I put a robe half way on—the IV prevented putting my right arm in its sleeve—took a firm grip on my IV pole and started off to the pay phone. As I made my way down the hall with my IV pole rattling along with me, I could here the nurses and ward clerk naming landmarks and distances. They were setting up an office pool for how close I would get to the toilet before...well, before someone won the bet. The furthest away was in the phone booth, and the closest was three feet from the toilet. The last thing I heard was the beginnings of an argument about whether or not in front of the chapel would count the same if I was headed toward the phone booth or the toilet. <br />
<br />
I got through to my girlfriend, which was a trick in itself. There were only, I was told, twenty-six lines to handle the incoming calls for several thousand freshman and sophomore students, and it wasn't unusual to have to dial for an hour or so before you could get through in the evening. I had, however, taking the precaution of verifying to the school switchboard that I was actually a patient in the University of Michigan Hospitals, and had very limited time at the one and only phone booth. This had the effect of putting my calls at the head of the line, and it often took only five or ten minutes to get through. (I was just thinking of having to explain this whole concept to my grandson.)<br />
<br />
I was feeling fine. In control. No dams about to burst, and we started talking about getting married that summer. Somewhere around deciding in a park would be nice great fissures appeared in the Grand Cooley, Boulder, and Aswan Dams. I dropped the phone (without saying good-bye, I paid for that later) and started running. Now it's hard enough for a hemophiliac with damaged knees and ankles to run when he prepared for it with proper clothing and shoes and all that. Put that same hemophiliac in hospital pajamas, an ill-fitting robe, dragging an IV pole, AND at the same time having to maintain a certain amount of, shall we say, tension in the general anal region, and this person is not going to be moving quite as swiftly as he had hoped.<br />
<br />
The IV pole was having a hard time keeping up with me, and tilted up onto two wheels which caused the base to swing back and forth like a windshield wiper, except on the floor. Meanwhile, my left hand is groping wildly at the knot of my robe's belt, and I was cursing my fussy habit of tying a square knot.<br />
About ten yards from the bathroom door I got the belt untied and threw my robe off onto the floor. The nurses and the ward clerk were cheering me on, either hoping I'd make it because I'd already passed their choice, or in anticipation of winning because their spot was still, as they say, in the running. <br />
<br />
By the time I hit the door to the restroom I had my pajama bottoms unfastened and ready to drop. I made a kind of Brad Pitt style slide across the floor (hard to do when swinging an IV pole and dropping your pants) into an open stall and landed on the toilet just as a Saturn V rocket ignited somewhere in my lower abdomen. About when the second stage of that rocket began firing, a nurse who had put her money on three feet from the toilet came in to make sure she hadn't won. She said, "Damn!" threw me a clean pair of pajama bottoms and left mumbling something about increasing the amount of Castor oil. Nurses can have a really warped sense of humor.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-46354296540293736232009-09-17T23:12:00.004-07:002009-10-10T22:39:19.889-07:00Don't be nervous, don't be flustered, be prepared . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQTKHkxSTCP0Hw0Vo996SlATZk26rgMLJJqHInQrTdYFSpJAkCWYtFRohiV_tT09Frc6gky5LexbQ7b6umNlnEGT2NVcRVP6saW4WUJGjVxH5EIHjQDOp0PuygsXSO2zPflD_42EQq_dq6/s1600-h/Troop73.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5382718500201398402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQTKHkxSTCP0Hw0Vo996SlATZk26rgMLJJqHInQrTdYFSpJAkCWYtFRohiV_tT09Frc6gky5LexbQ7b6umNlnEGT2NVcRVP6saW4WUJGjVxH5EIHjQDOp0PuygsXSO2zPflD_42EQq_dq6/s320/Troop73.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 221px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 320px;" /></a><br />
I have already talked about the unfortunate semester I spent at St Elizabeth's when I was in the third grade. Believe me, I only scratched the surface. There was, for example, "Spelling Period." This was not a part of the day devoted to studying spelling, and perhaps having a quiz like any normal teacher might have devised. It was a period, usually about thirty minutes long, during which Sister Rose spelled every word she would normally say; and you, if called on, were expected to do the same. When your sentence came to a punctuation mark like 'comma' or 'period' you said the appropriate word.<br />
<br />
I hated Spelling Period. I have learned over the years that I do not assimilate things as quickly when I hear them as I do visually, and I spent most of Spelling Period wondering what the heck was going on. Sister Rose would be up there yammering on, "A•N•D•W•H•A•T•I•S•T•H•E•C•A•P•I•T•O•L•O•F•M•I•C•H•I•G•A•N•comma•G•U•Y•question mark"<br />
<br />
When I heard that "comma•G•U•Y•question mark" I knew I was in trouble because I didn't have the slightest clue about what the question was. I got very good at spelling out, "I•D•O•N•O•T•K•N•O•W•period."<br />
<br />
But as much grief as Sister Rose gave me, she was not the worst person I ran into that year. And like the good Sister, this man also felt he had God on his side.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Somewhere around the spring of the year, after I was already safely back at Central, Mom came to me and asked me if I would like to be in the Cub Scouts. This was exciting stuff. There was the snappy blue uniform, and if you did a good job you could work your way up to actual, real Boy Scout. I told Mom that I would very much like to be a Cub Scout, and spent the next week or two looking forward to learning all the secrets and skills of Cub Scouting.<br />
<br />
Eventually it dawned on me that quite a bit of time had passed, and some of my classmates were going to Den meetings and Pack meetings and I wasn't. I asked Mom about it, and she quietly told me that because I had hemophilia I couldn't be a Cub Scout. I was crushed. I don't remember actually crying, but I know I wanted to. All my life I had been learning what things I shouldn't do or couldn't do because of the hemophilia, but this was the first time I wasn't going to be allowed to figure out a way to still take part in something.<br />
<br />
Over the next few weeks, however, I learned by listening to Mom talk to Dad and her friends when she didn't know I could hear them, that the Pack leader's rejection had been a bit, shall we say, stronger and more personal that simply stating a matter of policy.<br />
<br />
He had told Mom that I couldn't join the Cub Scouts because I was a cripple and it wouldn't be fair to the other kids. I had no right to hold them back in their activities, and instead of trying to be something I could never be—a real boy—I should be learning to accept my fate, and realize I would never be more than a drain on society. I guess he went on to say that I would most likely die young, or at the very best be an unproductive cripple, and it was unfair to me to let me pretend I was like the other kids. To this day I am surprised that Mom didn't kill him.<br />
<br />
It was at about that time I stopped showing my knees to the kids when I had a knee hemorrhage. Along about the time the active bleeding stopped and the blood was starting to be reabsorbed, my knee would turn an amazing swirl of colors. It would still be about the size of a soccer ball, and greens, purples, yellows, reds and sometimes even blues would make it look like a bright finger painting. Classmates were always fascinated by it, but it didn't feel right anymore to let them see it.<br />
<br />
Over time I was able to not think about the Pack leader's opinion of my worth. I didn't forget his remarks, but at nine and ten years old I had a lot of other things to do that were a lot more fun than proving him right.<br />
<br />
After I turned eleven Mom came to me again and asked if I would be interested in being a Boy Scout. I said sure, but we both knew that they wouldn't let me in. She said she had been talking to a Scout Master, and he didn't see any problem so if I wanted to I could join. Let me tell you, it's hard to tell your mother that something would be nice when you are screaming for joy on the inside.<br />
<br />
I will always be indebted to Mr Howard (Skinny) Wilson. He let me be just another boy in the troop. I don't know how he did it, but no matter what happened he made my hemorrhages just another part of learning how to camp out. I also think it helped that the guys in the troop were also pretty decent. They certainly didn't seem to hold any of the opinions of that Pack Leader—at least to my face.<br />
<br />
During the Klondike Derby (a winter race where each patrol pulled a large sled around a course with different stations to demonstrate skills) I would be the kid 'rescued' off the frozen lake and treated for a broken leg since I almost always had a knee bleed then. It was just type casting. If I was on crutches or not, I did each chore in rotation with the other guys when camping. The summer we constructed our summer camp ground by lashing everything (tables, fence, gate) together the guys lashed together a litter for me—naturally I had a knee bleed—and carried me through those woods at a breakneck speed that would have given my parents and doctors palpitations. It probably extended the hemorrhage another week, but it was worth it.<br />
<br />
The guys of Troop 73, and Mr Wilson especially, will always hold a special spot in my memory because they didn't realize I was a cripple with no future, and just thought I was a Boy Scout.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-4829589459628753582009-08-02T14:54:00.009-07:002009-10-10T22:39:52.824-07:00Ah, but I was so much older then . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vrGNJOIWXkUXaHxzLwDQA89aotycjpQc1yo3LZUhEnvcztmgBJxAaCGtnF1PN84EBvyMYdC2LfGmheESc6sTGpTlRhOzqGoevtm1qGhqc4x4ZAkrUUyqr6s2oe855D1lkg9QvfISqLTp/s1600-h/University+of+Michigan+Main+Hospital.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5367100541648844338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0vrGNJOIWXkUXaHxzLwDQA89aotycjpQc1yo3LZUhEnvcztmgBJxAaCGtnF1PN84EBvyMYdC2LfGmheESc6sTGpTlRhOzqGoevtm1qGhqc4x4ZAkrUUyqr6s2oe855D1lkg9QvfISqLTp/s320/University+of+Michigan+Main+Hospital.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 203px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 304px;" /></a><br />
When I think back on it, it seems that a good deal of my younger life was concerned with, or at least references, the wards and floors of the University of Michigan Hospitals. Just as I might tell you about walking down a street in Buffalo in the winter, and expect the place name to elicit a certain set of connotations and images; telling you that this or that happened on 8-West or 6-East gives the story, for me at least, an atmosphere that it could have no where else.<br />
<br />
Moving from one floor or ward to another was also a kind of rite of passage, and meant I had, with luck, become a bit more mature. Since we didn't move to Michigan until I was almost six, and my first hospitalization wasn't until I was seven, I started out on 6-East.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>The main section of the hospital was built like two 'Y's joined at the base, and at each end the arms of the 'Y's angled out forming the wards. At the end of the arm was a large room called the sun porch. The three outside walls of the sun porch were filled with large windows, and on most wards the room served as a TV/Reading room. On the ward proper there was a window between each bed space, and there were no TVs until the late 1960s.<br />
<br />
6-East was for kids roughly between the ages of two and ten. What was one cavernous ward on the other floors was, on 6-East, divided up into rooms, and all the interior walls were glass from stretcher level up to the ceiling. Each room could hold from one to four beds, and the sun porch had another five beds. 6-East was also different in as much as the nursing station was in the center of the ward on the left side instead of where the two arms of the 'Y' came together.<br />
<br />
While they tried to keep each little room reserved for either boys or girls, there was occasionally some intermixing. No matter what the gender of your roommates, whatever privacy you got was provided by long curtains that could be pulled around your bed space. What most people forgot was that the privacy afforded by the curtains was purely visual. Sounds were heard by everyone.<br />
<br />
The sun porch was the place to be. It was bright and sunny, at least when the world was, and you could easily watch what was going on down on the ground. It also had a television. The walls between it and the main ward were solid, and people weren't walking back and forth to other rooms staring into your room all the time, and because it was somewhat distant from the nurses' station, and had those solid walls between you and the rest of the ward, you didn't have as much, shall we say, supervision as you did in the other rooms. At least when Miss Hibbler wasn't on duty.<br />
<br />
Miss Hibbler was a short, somewhat plump, ancient woman probably in, at that time, her early 50s. Along with the standard white nurse's uniform she always wore a rubber apron. She was, I believe, an LPN (for the life of me I can't remember the color of the stripe on her cap), and seemed to have more control of the day to day operations of the ward than the head nurse. She had a slight German accent, and a militaristic briskness about her that kept us kids in line far better than the scoldings of the other nurses.<br />
<br />
Parents, including my mother, were usually a bit afraid of Miss Hibbler. She came across to them as stern and unyielding. Interns and residents were totally terrified of her. If they did something less than brilliant in her presence, or even when she was nearby, she would tear into them like a terrier with an old sock. Many years later I was talking to a Simpson Fellow, and somehow her name came up. He had had dealings with her when he was a third year student and intern, and all he would say was you didn't want to do anything dumb on her ward. We kids knew, however, that as long as we followed her surprisingly few rules, under that sergeant-major gruffness hid a very mischievous little girl.<br />
<br />
Once, during a rather long hospitalization, my mother smuggled in a pet chameleon we had at the time. She had several hard plastic purses, and had taken one and drilled air holes in it. The lizard looked pretty calm about being in this strange place, but Mom was a nervous wreck. The first thing she asked me when she came in was, "Is Miss Hibbler on today?"<br />
<br />
I said, "Yeah. Why?"<br />
<br />
"I brought something, but if she see's it she'll probably kick me out of the hospital." Then she brings that purse out from behind her and shows me what she has done. "Is she near."<br />
<br />
I could see down the hall. "I don't see her. I think it's her lunch time."<br />
<br />
Hearing that she seemed to relax, and opened the purse. She had just taken the lizard out (it was only about 8 inches long) when we heard, "Vot is dis!" Mom immediately started making about a hundred excuses and reasons why she had to bring it up to see me, but I don't think Miss Hibbler listened to any of them. She just waved them aside with a "Yah, yah.", and then leaning down to my Mom very conspiringly she said, "You let me borrow for a few seconds? Okay?" Mom said something like sure, but what for, and Miss Hibbler just said, "It will be all right. Just listen for the squeal," and she took the lizard down the hall.<br />
<br />
About twenty seconds later we heard a woman scream like they do in the movies. Orderlies, interns, student nurses, and visitors all ran to the nurses' station expecting to find a severely wounded woman. What they found was the head nurse frozen rigidly upright with a little green lizard peeking out of her collar. Now Miss Hibbler was not crass, and she didn't laugh uproariously or anything crude like that. She simply said "I like your necklace. It matches your eyes und goes well with your bright red cheeks."<br />
<br />
"Take it off me!"<br />
<br />
"But of course." She reached down the back of the nurse's uniform and gently brought out the lizard. "Where did you get such a thing?" There were no recriminations, and Miss Hibbler did not get into any kind of trouble, but it was several weeks before the head nurse would turn her back on Miss Hibbler again. When the lizard was returned to Mom, Miss Hibbler said, "He is a nice little lizard. Bring him back, but maybe you should wait a little."<br />
<br />
After 6-East came 6-West, which took in kids from about eleven to fourteen years old. Like the adult wards, there were no partitions on 6-West, and there were nine beds down each side. There were still bed spaces on the sun porch, but these were only used when the ward had too many patients. Unlike the adult wards the wards weren't separated by sex. The left hand arm, as you cam to them down the main hall, was for surgery cases, and the right hand ward was for internal medicine. Girls filled the beds down the left side of each ward generally, and boys went down the right side. Again there were the ubiquitous bed curtains providing at least visual privacy.<br />
<br />
The first thing that happened when I got to 6-West was it changed its name. The hospital complex was built on a hill sloping down away from the street in front. If you came in the Outpatient Building you had to go up to its 5th floor to take the passage over to the Main Hospital's 1st floor. And since the Emergency Room was on the 4th floor, people were already a bit confused by the layout. So to give some kind of consistency to the whole mess, buildings were renumbered using the Outpatient Building as the base. Floors in the Main Hospital that shared the same level as the Outpatient Building had the same number.<br />
<br />
This meant that instead of 6-West I was now going to 10-West. The cafeteria was now on the fifth floor along with admissions, the cigarette/magazine stand and the door. There was no first floor. The dreaded Contagious Diseases Unit was now on the eleventh floor instead of the seventh, and the school and recreation departments had moved from the 8th floor to the 12th by staying put.<br />
<br />
Aside from Miss Wyles, an RN who occupied a fair number of my private thoughts when I got a little older, the person I remember best is (was?) a nurse's aide named Anna. Anna was a Polish lady in her thirties. Her build was more farm maiden than vixen, and she kept her hair in a very short kind of bob. She always worked the day shift, and most of her time was spent making our beds, and making sure we got washed up and dressed. (Unless you were practically dead, you put on hospital issue clothes every morning. Jeans and t-shirt for boys and a simple dress for girls. In the evening everyone put on pajamas.) She had an absolute phobia about dirt.<br />
<br />
Because I was always in there for bleeding somewhere, usually my knees, I was always on bedrest. Before breakfast either Anna or a student nurse would bring me a basin of hot water, pull the curtains around my bed, and tell me to wash up. Some of the student nurses would ask if I needed help, but Anna would just say "Get clean." Naturally, I would then squish the soap and wash cloth enough to make the water cloudy, and then read comic books.<br />
<br />
About once a week Anna would get fed up with my lack of diligence. If the hemorrhage was really, really bad she would scrub me down in the bed. I was always surprised I had skin after those cleanings. But if the hemorrhage was only kind of bad she would pick me up, and take me down to the bath room. I would protest the whole time, saying I was on bedrest and wasn't supposed to be out of bed for any reason. She would put me in the tub saying, "You stink. You can go back to bed when you don't smell."<br />
<br />
We had heard stories about a ward that was for teenagers, and had guys on one side and girls on the other, and only a nurse at a desk between them at night; but when I was admitted for a hemorrhage when I was 16 my libido suffered a severe shock when I was sent to an adult, all male, ward. Apparently the teenage ward had been closed for a variety of reasons, some of which had to do with teenage libidos.<br />
<br />
On the adult floors each ward was for a different specialty (orthopedics, internal medicine, hematology, etc); and the left hand arm was the female ward and the right hand arm was for men. There were eighteen beds on each ward, and the numbering started with the first bed on the left on the female ward and went clockwise around the ward, and then continued in the same manner on the male ward so that the bed on the right as you entered the room was #36. Hematology, along with Dermatology and Urology, was on 8-West.<br />
<br />
My favorite bed was actually #36½.<br />
<br />
#36½ was the space usually taken up by the linen cart, and was only used when the ward was already full. It was against the front wall on the right as you entered the ward, and while you had a little less floor space, you had a lot more privacy. People tend, in my experience, to look to the left when they enter a large room. Plus they don't look directly to the side, but at an angle so even if they are looking to the right they are looking at the guy in bed #36 and not #36½. It may not seem like much, but when some guy's wife, mother, and great-aunt come trooping in at 7:15 in the morning you are grateful for anything that keeps you from being looked at.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-13455453768129648192009-07-23T12:57:00.011-07:002009-10-10T22:40:29.282-07:00See the man with the stage fright . . .It happened when I was nine years old, which would make it the summer of 1955. Having been fed lunch my brother and I were invited by our mother to spend the rest of the afternoon outside. Actually, it wasn't so much an invitation as a declaration of what <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span> going to happen. She had cleaning to do; soap operss, Queen for a Day, and Liberace (the last two <span style="font-style: italic;">were</span> different) to watch; and she didn't need two young boys doing their best to distract her.<br />
<br />
To be honest, Mom did not really have to say very much to get us out of the house. The last thing nine and seven year old boys wanted to do on a nice summer day was stay inside. We had ants to watch, a tire swing to break our arms and/or necks on, and a cardboard rocket behind the shed to fight invading Martians in. At the very worst we could sit on the back steps and watch our cat taunt our dog by staying just an inch or so beyond his reach.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>That afternoon, however, our backyard seemed a little confining so we decided to explore the semi-vacant lot behind our neighbor. There was often priceless treasures along with a lot of just plain junk to be found hiding in the weeds, and that afternoon we hit the jackpot. Behind a pile of old tires we found a set of mattress springs.<br />
<br />
One of the more lethal fads to sweep the country was the 50s' mania for backyard trampolines. My brother and I tried to talk Mom and Dad into getting one, but they decided the tire swing gave us ample opportunity to kill or maim ourselves, and a trampoline was not needed. This was, of course, unfair. If Mom and Dad wouldn't provide a trampoline, perhaps we could build our own, and the mattress springs were just the thing we needed.<br />
<br />
First we had to test them.<br />
<br />
My brother got on and started doing some tentative little hops, and while he wasn't getting the altitude we had hoped for, the results were positive. I got on and started jumping. It was great. It was better than a pogo stick. (For one thing you didn't have that stick threatening to smash you in the face.) Pretty soon Mert and I were jumping for all we were worth and laughing with the sheer joy of it.<br />
<br />
Then as I was coming down, he was coming up and his head hit my chin and slammed my mouth shut. Everything would have been just fine if my tongue hadn't been in the way.<br />
<br />
We picked ourselves up, and pretty soon the ringing in our ears stopped. Except for a bit of a lump on his head, Mert was okay, but I was bleeding like gang-busters from my mouth. We went back to the house, and Mom started to ask us what we wanted but then she saw me and just said, "Jesus Christ!" All through my youth I had a penchant for smashing my face in rather messy ways, and at least two or three times a summer (and maybe once or twice in the winter) I would enter the house to the shocked and amazed sound of "Jesus Christ!" This was, however, the first one I remember.<br />
<br />
Mom scribbled a note to Dad, threw us in the car and drove to the family doctor's office. Our local doctor was one of the few, if not the only, small town doctors to keep a supply of AHG on hand. AHG was the dreadfully named Anti-Hemophilic Globulin, and was the wonder serum of the 50s. The fact that its efficacy was slim to none a great deal of the time was beside the point. The alternative was nothing, and AHG was occasionally better than nothing.<br />
<br />
The doctor examined my tongue, and was mildly surprised because I had bitten through it on both sides at the back with my molars instead of at the front with my incisors. I remember him saying something about it being too wide for my mouth. He gave me a dose of AHG, and said that should keep it from bleeding, and then stitched up my tongue.<br />
<br />
That night my tongue swelled. The stitches didn't. They pulled through my tongue, chopping up whatever bits I hadn't managed to bite through.<br />
<br />
When we got to the hospital the next morning I was bleeding like crazy again and the intern who first examined me said the back of my tongue looked like hamburger. I was quickly installed in a bed on 6-East (Pediatrics, ages 1 to 11) with my right arm securely taped down to an arm board for an IV, and a rubber cover on my pillow. Over the head of my bed was a sign that said "NPO" and told the world I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything; and on the foot of my bed was another sign that went on to say that I was also not allowed to talk, sing, laugh, cry, swallow or anything else that might involve my tongue. For some reason they also put me on complete bed rest, which meant I wasn't even allowed to sit in the chair next to my bed.<br />
<br />
For the next few weeks they put some real foul tasting gauze on my tongue, gave me AHG every few hours, and cleaned up the blood on my face and pillow each morning or whenever I took a nap. Eventually some large, squishy clots formed and I started waking up with a much cleaner pillow.<br />
<br />
One Monday or Tuesday during the third week one of the doctors came in and asked me if I was getting hungry. I didn't have the vocabulary at that time to express either my hunger or the intelligence of first year residents, so I just wrote "Yes!" Because I had to write everything my mother had brought in several "Magic Slates" for me to use. That way I could just lift the page and have a fresh surface, and didn't have to worry about throwing out a lot of paper. I kept one on my night stand, and one on the bedside table, and ever since I had attended a Catholic Mass because I couldn't reach either of them in time I had started keeping a couple on my bed.<br />
<br />
He said he understood, which I really doubted, and was sorry I wasn't going to be able to eat yet, BUT he thought I might like this. Then he showed me this 'thing'. It was a rubber bulb like the one on the sprayer my mother sprinkled clothes with when she was ironing. Connected to it was a piece of glass tubing about four or five inches long. The tubing was bent in the middle, and tapered to a rounded end.<br />
<br />
"What you do," he said, "is fill this with water or maybe some clear soup, and then put it so the end is way back in your mouth. Then you squirt the water down your throat so you don't have to swallow."<br />
<br />
My brain was still considering all of the ramifications of the word "soup"—I was very hungry—and I didn't think about the actual mechanics of the process. To be completely fair, I don't think he had either. Nevertheless, he proceeded to help me try it out. Now at the time I still wasn't supposed to swallow, so he carefully slid the tube as far back in my mouth as he could. Then he squeezed the bulb.<br />
<br />
They tell me you don't have taste buds that far back on your tongue. Maybe it was odor or the bulb that caused it—I don't know, but that water tasted just like rubber. I didn't care. It was something going into my stomach, and I happily swallowed it. He yelled, "Don't swallow!" I tried not to, but then I just gagged. Eventually we reached a compromise where I almost didn't swallow but still avoided gagging. Later, at lunch time, a nurse filled the bulb with some broth, and I tried squirting that down. It didn't go over very well though because even though everyone said it was impossible, it tasted like Consommé of Rubber to me, and after a squirt or two I would always start choking.<br />
<br />
A couple days later I was sitting in my bed pretty much minding my own business, When that same first year resident came in. He was asking me how I felt, and how things are going without really even looking at the replies I wrote down. This irritated me because by that time they were using my left arm for the IV (I was, still am for that matter, left handed), and I was kind of proud of the writing I was doing with my right hand. By that time he had transferred the saline and dextrose bottles over to a pole attached to my bed. I liked to use a separate pole because I felt it gave me more freedom. I could move about the bed and not worry about the length of the tubing because I could just move the pole where I needed it.<br />
<br />
It may not seem like much, but that 30"X60" mattress was my world and being able to move down to the foot and prop my pillow there was some sorely needed freedom of movement. I had seen a couple kids who were able to move around with ease and were relatively pain free go a little bonkers after being confined to bed for several weeks. It got to the point for one kid that he, this was a couple years later, did a nearly perfect swan dive off of his foot rail, diving the 3.5 feet headfirst into highly polished granite. The headache he had for the next several days alleviated some of the sense of being confine, but not all.<br />
<br />
Anyway, in just a couple minutes—those old beds didn't have all the connections you have worry about now—he had me out in the hall, pushing me at a pretty brisk pace.<br />
While we were going down the hall he told me I should check my zipper, and maybe comb my hair. We turned into a corridor that led to an elevator that could take you up to the surgery suites. I sighed with relief when he passed it. At the end of the hall was the sacred entrance to the wing that had the private rooms, and for a second or two I wondered if I was going to sample their many splendors. They were said to have a TV in each room, and you could order anything you wanted to eat. I had also heard that each room had its own bathroom, and you didn't have to use a bed pan unless you were dying or something.<br />
<br />
We went by the entry to surgery, but we never quite made to the LotusLand of the private rooms. By this time I thought I knew what was going on. A couple of other times I had been shown to a class to let them see what a swollen knee looked like (bigger than my head), and how the bleeding limited the range of motion. I figured this would be like that. Fifteen or Twenty students tops, most of them too scared to actually touch you in any meaningful way. Well, except for the Ben Casey wannabe's. They were always so cool you could use them to store medication, and this was all so blasé to them that they would take hold of your swollen joint and squeeze it like a suspect nectarine.<br />
<br />
we pulled up to a door, and I sat up a bit straighter and smoothed my t-shirt, but when we crashed through the doors it was just an ante-room. He then had a small conference with that month's 3rd year resident and with Dr Hynes, who I usually only saw once a week during grand rounds, but she controlled every aspect of my treatment personally and completely. I was pretty sure she even decided if the residents could sit while in my room, and if so what the order was. After about twenty seconds they moved my bed into the next room which was ovbiously a stage and had a curtain along one long side.<br />
<br />
Dr Hynes stepped through the curtains and said a few words to the students assembled in the room. She was an amazing Pediatric Hemologist, and with a look and a slight adjustment to her tone of voice could cause battle scared, toughened veterans to weep apologies. She was hard. She had no time for fools. Unless they were between the ages of 1 and 11. Those she would play with all day if she could. We kids loved her. In a place which seemed like every brick has been placed to accentuate hopelessness, and the room decor had taken most of its inspiration from one of Vlad the Impaler's darker playrooms, you wanted a tough, take-no-prisoners type on your side. We knew that no matter what the interns and 1st year residents might dream up, she was there to protect us from their more insane ideas.<br />
<br />
She made her little talk, and then introduced today's sacrifice. They open the curtains, and there were at least three or four hundred people sitting in this large amphitheater staring intently at me. I stared back. All the ranks were there. Med students in their street clothes and white sport coats, interns, residents and even a couple department heads with their calf length lab coats. Also scattered about the audience were quite a few student nurses in their blue uniforms.<br />
<br />
The 1st year resident then started giving my history including family tree, previous hospitalizations, and all that stuff. During his recitation the audience relaxed their inspection of me a bit to pay attention to what he was saying. Then he got to my current injury, and three hundred some people leaned forward as if to get a closer look. I was asked to open my mouth as wide as I could to give them a better view. I didn't know how someone sitting fifty feet away was going to get a better look just because I opened my mouth another half inch, but unless it's down right dangerous it's better to go along with interns and residents than try to reason with them.<br />
<br />
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Dr Hynes had a funny kind of smile and was shaking her head, so I figured he would learn soon enough how silly some instructions could be. The audience, however, was staring intently at my mouth and making all kinds of notes. It made me wish I had something interesting to do for them besides sit on my bed with my mouth open.<br />
<br />
Then he picked up the bulb thingy and explained its purpose. He filled it with water and said, "Show them how you drink water, Guy."<br />
<br />
I looked at him trying my best to convey the questions, "Really? Now? Do I have to?" He smiled reassuringly, or threateningly—I'm still not sure—and handed be the bulb. I shrugged my shoulders, looked out at the people, and went through the routine. After I was done choking he explained there still were some kinks to work out, and invited the audience to come down and take a closer look.<br />
<br />
Everyone applauded.<br />
<br />
Then for the next half hour or so I sat on my stretcher while the line slowly filed passed. Some just glanced in and went on. Some looked carefully from several angles and tsk-tsked. I felt like one of the less interesting monkeys in the zoo. A few gingerly pulled my cheeks this way and that to get a better view. Only a very few, perhaps two or three, said anything to me; and I noticed that they were all the older doctors whose lab coats, like Dr Hynes's, reached to just above their ankles. What they said wasn't much or earth-shattering, but it was comforting. The others were so busy being objective and scientific that all they allowed themselves to see was a 'patient.' A 'case' to be studied, and perhaps learn a trick or two from. The old guys with the long coats remembered that first and foremost, this was a kid—a person—sitting all alone on a stage wishing he wasn't drooling on himself.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-56307546320294110732009-05-25T22:53:00.009-07:002009-10-10T22:41:23.406-07:00Dear old Golden Rule days . . .The school I went to when I was in first and second grade, Central, was built a little before World War I, and the architects had certainly never heard of the Americans with Disabilities Act. (Probably because it hadn't been passed yet.) To get into the thing you had to go up six or seven steps, my classroom was on the second floor, and the restrooms were, of course, in the basement. The steps in the stairwells were made of some kind of stone that had been rounded by fifty some years of use. They were also slick as ice whenever there was the least bit of moisture on them.<br />
<br />
Because my crutches would often just slide out from under me on those steps the principal, Mr Green, would carry me up to my classroom in the morning whenever I had a knee hemorrhage, and then back down at the end of the day. At lunch time he would carry me down to the lunch room and then back up to the classroom, and if I needed to go #1 or #2 Mr Green would carry me down the three floors to the restroom. All this being lugged about like an infant was just a bit humiliating for me, and didn't do Mr Green's bad heart much good either, so I often didn't go to school when I had a knee bleed.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>When I was in second grade Tecumseh's Catholic church began building a school. It was completely modern which meant it was ugly as hell, but more importantly it was all on one floor. My parents thought if I could go to St Elizabeth's (I have never known why it was in the possessive) I wouldn't have to miss so many school days because of knee bleeds. So after many discussions and a couple meetings with the school's administration they scraped up the tuition charged for the children of non-Catholic pagans—about three weeks worth of Dad's wages—and bought me three pairs of wool slacks, some white shirts and an assortment of clip-on bow ties. Since a uniform had not been decided on yet boys were to wear dress slacks, white shirts and a tie. Girls had to wear a dark skirt and white blouse.<br />
<br />
The first day of third grade I jumped out of the car a little excited, and a little apprehensive about this new school and these strange teachers dressed in about forty pounds of black robes. Without even trying I immediately began establishing the lack of harmony and total absence of good will that would exemplify my time at St Elizabeth's by pissing off a stern, older woman in black robes, and getting into an argument with another lady that had all white robes and turned out to be my teacher. All before I got into the building.<br />
<br />
The lady in black turned out to be the school's principal, and in the fullness of time I learned that we were to supposed to address her as 'Mother Superior.' That first day all I knew was that she was a stern, angry for no particular reason lady who told me to stop running and walk like a gentleman. The lady in white stopped me at the door and said, "What class are you in, young man?"<br />
<br />
"Um, third grade, ma'am."<br />
<br />
"Sister."<br />
<br />
"Huh?"<br />
<br />
"Do not grunt like an animal. You say 'Sister.'"<br />
<br />
"Why, ma'am?"<br />
<br />
"You do not address me as 'Ma'am,' you say 'Sister.'"<br />
<br />
"But you're not my sister. She's in Oregon."<br />
<br />
"My name is Sister Rose. I am a nun. You can tell I'm a nun by the habit I wear. You address me and all the other nun's that dress like me as 'Sister.' Do you understand?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, Ma'a…," her left eyebrow went up so high it almost disappeared behind the white band that went across her forehead, "Sister!"<br />
<br />
"Very good. Now, what class are you in again?"<br />
<br />
"I'm in third grade, Ma…Sister, but it's for the first time."<br />
<br />
"Your room is the second door on the left. Now go in and take a seat."<br />
<br />
"Yes, Ma'am."<br />
<br />
"SISTER!"<br />
<br />
From there on things seem to go steadily downhill, no matter how hard I tried to follow the several million rules that seemed to govern everything from how we dressed to what we said to how we walked out to recess (single file, looking at the head of the kid in front of us) I would somehow manage to mess it up. I got in trouble for giggling when Sister Rose explained that even though she wore a flowing, white habit we should not think she was an angel. When asked to explain why I had giggled I got into even more trouble. (I said it was obvious they weren't angels because we could see their underwear on the clothesline behind the convent, and everybody knew that angels didn't wear underwear.) I got in trouble when she said she wore a wedding ring because she, and all of the other nuns, were the bride of Christ, and I said I thought it was against the law to have more than one wife. I got into trouble because I would forget to stand when called upon by Sister Rose, and for a few hundred other minor lapses in thought or action; but perhaps my major failing was wearing a tie, or to be more precise, failing to wear a tie.<br />
<br />
At least three , and very often four or five, days a week I would forget to wear my tie. My mother even began keeping a couple in the car for the days I left home without one, and I would still manage to arrive at my desk sans tie. Sister Rose would call me up to her desk, and would pin a bow tie made of folded notebook paper to my shirt. As she pinned it on she would quietly list all of the reasons I would be going to Hell, and the punishments she personally would inflict before I went. <br />
<br />
One Monday morning Sister Rose told me to stand and explain why I did not have a tie on. (We always had to stand when speaking.) I said that in all probability I forgot it.<br />
<br />
"Step up to the desk, please." I made my usual morning walk up to her desk and stood beside it waiting for my notebook paper tie. "We will see if this will help you remember in the future." I braced myself for a smacking, but instead she took out of a drawer a huge, bright yellow bow tie made out of poster board. It was wider than I was, and in large, black letters it said "Guy's Tie!"<br />
<br />
I'm not sure what reaction she was looking for, but I know for a fact that the one she got wasn't it. This was great. This was even better than the one Soupy Sales wore. I took it from her and said, "Wow! Can I put some polka dots on it?"<br />
<br />
The other major problem I had with the rules, and I think it was the one that eventually led to all parties agreeing that I would perhaps be happier in the public school, was that rule about standing when speaking. If you dropped, say, your pencil you could not just reach down and pick it up. You had to stand up next to your desk until Sister Rose recognized you. Then you had to say, "Excuse me, Sister. Excuse me, Class. I dropped my pencil." Sister Rose would then give you permission to pick it up. After retrieving the run away pencil you would sit down again.<br />
<br />
Somewhere around the fourth or fifth week of school I had my first knee bleed of the school year. After the first few, really painful days Mom decided that I should begin taking advantage of St Elizabeth's one story floor plan. When I sat down at my desk I got my first indication that this might not be as easy as had been hoped. The desks were the kind that had the seat attached to the desk portion on the right side, which meant you had to get in on the left side. When I sat down I automatically put my crutches down along the left side of the desk. Sister Rose immediately objected. I had to put them on the right side.<br />
<br />
I tried to point out that I needed them on the left side, and putting them down on the right side was difficult because I had to lift them over the desk while not hitting the kid in front of me, and the connection between the seat and the desk made it difficult to reach the floor. That was not important. I would put them on the right side of my desk.<br />
<br />
Then I dropped my pencil.<br />
<br />
At first I tried what I though was the logical thing to do. I raised my hand. After holding my hand up for five minutes or so Sister Rose finally said, "Guy, you know the rules."<br />
<br />
"You mean I have to stand?"<br />
<br />
"That is the rule."<br />
<br />
I leaned down and got my crutches. I carefully lifted them over to the left side missing the kid in front of me by a couple inches. I turned in my seat so I could stand up. When I stood the change in pressure made my knee throb with pain. Then I turned to face the front of the room.<br />
<br />
After a couple of minutes to show that there would be no pampering me just because of a hemorrhage, Sister Rose said, "Yes, Guy?"<br />
<br />
"Excuse me, Sister. Excuse me, Class. I dropped my pencil."<br />
<br />
"You may retrieve it."<br />
<br />
The pencil had rolled a few feet away. I used one crutch to pull it to me, then bent down to pick it up. This was trickier than it sounds. My left leg was the one that was bleeding, and the swelling had made the joint contract and it would neither bend nor straighten. I couldn't just bend at the waist because that caused the muscles in the back of my thigh to stretch and was very painful. So I had to balance on my right foot, and lift my left leg behind me as I bent over while holding on to both crutches with my right hand and using them to keep from falling on my face. Then I grabbed the pencil. After straightening up I got my crutches back under my arms and turned so I could sit down. I sat down and then turned to face the front again. Then I had to lift the crutches back over the desk and put them down on the floor. All in all it took up about ten minutes of class time from the initial drop to putting my crutches back down.<br />
<br />
The other kids were doing their best not to giggle, and my knee was throbbing. The whole thing was stupid, and it was at that point that something in my nine year old brain snapped. I decided that if this was how we were going to play the game I would play it to the limit, and we'd see who gave in first. From then on at least once each morning and once each afternoon I would accidently drop something. Sometimes twice. On my best day I lost two pencils in the morning and an eraser, pencil and ruler in the afternoon.<br />
<br />
Each time I would laboriously pick the crutches up and lift them across the desk. I stopped worrying about the kid in front of me and he eventually became pretty adept at ducking. I would slowly turn in my seat and struggle to my feet, and then slowly, painfully (even when it didn't hurt) turn and wait. Sister Rose would stand there in silent rage. She would hiss, "Yes, Guy," and I would do my little sing-song apology. Except for being as clumsy as a carp, which I was pretty sure wasn't a sin, I was doing nothing wrong and I was following the rules to the letter. She would tell me to pick whatever it was up, and be quick about it. That never happened.<br />
<br />
During Christmas vacation Mom, Sister Rose and the Mother Superior had a meeting. When school started up again in January I was back at Central. Life was good.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-21671854387397689752009-03-23T21:35:00.012-07:002009-10-10T22:41:45.753-07:00Roger, draft dodger, sneakin' out the cellar door . . .In October of 1964 I turned eighteen. Eighteen was that magical semi-step into adulthood for young men that meant that you were still far too young to drink alcohol, except in the state of New York, and still could not vote, but you were now mature enough to spend a few years in the Army. Several weeks before my birthday I received a large envelope in the mail from the Selective Service with a nine or ten page form I was to fill out and return before said birthday. I really don't remember much about the form except for thinking, "I haven't lived long enough to have answers for this many questions." Or something like that. That is at least the gist of my reaction which was a very complex mixture of thoughts, emotions and panic which at the time got edited down to something which probably sounded more like, "Damn!"<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>After answering questions about every aspect of my life up to and almost including dreams I may or may not have occasionally had about a certain nurse that worked the 4:00 to Midnight shift, I got to the section concerning my health, and any physical conditions that might make me unfit for fulfilling my duty to God, Country, and, most importantly, the Army. I dutifully checked the box next to "Hemophilia," and supplied the names, addresses and phone numbers of my doctors and the hospitals I had been in, along with release forms for records. I also did my best to summarize, in the space provided and on a plain, letter sized sheet of white paper attached to the back of the form, the nearly two hundred hospitalizations I had had and the uncounted hemorrhages that had not been deemed severe enough to warrant treatment. The next day I mailed the completed form off fully confident I would be getting an automatic 4-F, and got back to the really important business of applying to colleges.<br />
<br />
A few days after my eighteenth birthday a somewhat smaller envelope arrived from the Selective Service, and I discovered that contrary to my expectations, my country felt I was qualified for the manly classification of 1-A. 1-A meant that in their humble opinion I was just the kind of young buck they were looking for, and at that time the odds were highly in favor of me being in uniform on my nineteenth birthday. The documents that accompanied the card were written in Officialese and for the most part did not make much sense, but in amongst the admonitions, orders and a couple outright threats we found a paragraph that said I had ten days from the date of the letter to appeal the classification. Said appeal to be made in person at the local Draft Board office during normal business hours. Since the Post Office had operated with unusual efficiency that meant I still had six days.<br />
<br />
The next morning, Friday, I skipped school for the first time in my life, borrowed the family car and drove the twenty miles to the county seat. The Draft Board, being a federal agency, was no where near the county courthouse, or any of the other buildings with county and state offices, and I finally found it in a storefront two doors down from the JC Penny's. The door was locked. A notice next to the door said that the office's normal hours of operation were:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">Tuesday and Thursday<br />
Only<br />
7:00am to 11:30am.<br />
</div><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">I remember thinking these were definitely not normal business hours.<br />
<br />
<br />
The next Tuesday I skipped school for the second time in my life (the Army was turning me into a regular truant), and at 7:00 o'clock in the morning, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the Draft Board office wishing I had worn a heavier sweater. At 7:03am, according to my watch, the door was unlocked and I was allowed in.<br />
<br />
<br />
First, it wasn't really a lobby or reception area, but a short, thoroughly dingy and dimly lighted hallway. There were no benches or chairs, and no effort had been spared to make you feel uninvited and unwelcome. It smelled of fear and resignation, with a slight memory of Pine-Sol. At the far end was a single window with a very small ledge for filling out papers. The window had a very stoutly built metal grating over it that had clearly been designed to keep anything smaller and less determined than an angry African war elephant on the outside. On the counter on the other side of the grating was a bell to ring if you wanted service. Years of dealing with the bitter bureaucrats and angry civil servants at the hospital had trained me not to touch the bell even if I could have reached it.<br />
<br />
<br />
After a few minutes of standing patiently and humming quietly to myself in a way that said please take no notice of me, I'm just remembering a song I like and am not in any way trying to draw attention to myself or interrupt your vitally important work, an elderly woman came to the window and politely snarled, "What do <span style="font-style: italic;">you </span>want?" It was clear that I was being singled out of an infinite number of irritations and interruptions that were vying for her attention on the off chance they could piss her off further.<br />
<br />
<br />
"Yes, Ma'am. I need to appeal my draft classification, please."<br />
<br />
<br />
"Why?"<br />
<br />
<br />
"Well, you see, I was classified 1-A, but I have hemophilia and...."<br />
<br />
<br />
"You need to fill out form 74Y-mumble-mumble."<br />
<br />
<br />
"Yes, that's the one. If I could just have one, please, I could fill it out for you right now."<br />
<br />
<br />
"I don't feel like looking for it," and she walked away.<br />
<br />
<br />
Now, I will admit that certain details have been given a somewhat dramatic description to heighten whatever the effect is that I'm attempting to create. By that I mean I might have described the entrance a bit gloomier than it was—there might have been a light on—and the lady might not have snarled so much as hissed, but this whole unlikely episode happened essentially just as I am telling it, taking into account an occasional bit of hyperbole; and I swear that those were her exact words. She knew that I needed form 74Y-mumble mumble to file my appeal. She knew I had the right to file that appeal. She didn't see what that had to do with her, and wasn't going to interrupt her coffee break to look for some damn form for some whiny kid who didn't want to do his duty. I was 1-A, and I was going to stay 1-A. Petty details like hemophilia were not going to change things.<br />
<br />
<br />
The really ironic thing, to me at least, was that I had actually talked to the Coast Guard and Navy to see if there was some way I could enlist in a non running, jumping, fighting capacity, and had been turned down. The way I saw it, even on an aircraft carrier someone has to type or decorate cakes. The Coast Guard and Navy, however, have very firm beliefs that even the cake decorators have to be able to run, jump and fight when need be, and as soon as the word 'hemophilia' found its way into the discussion they immediately showed me the door and made sure I made it through without bumping into either jamb.<br />
<br />
<br />
The next fall when I registered for classes at EMU, one of the punch cards in my packet was for applying for a student deferment. I filled it out, and in a few weeks received a new draft card showing I had been given the temporary classification of 2-S. After my freshman year I decided to confront things head on, and did not try to renew my 2-S classification.<br />
<br />
<br />
Now we are finally getting to what I wanted to tell you about.<br />
<br />
<br />
After once again being 1-A for a few months I received orders to report to my Draft Board office at 5:00am on a certain date for a physical examination. A week later I received another order canceling the first one. A few weeks later I received another order to report for a physical, and another cancelation. The third time was the charm.<br />
<br />
<br />
At 5:00am one sunny, early spring morning I was once again standing on the sidewalk in front of the Draft Board office. This time, however, I had not had to skip school, and I was accompanied by about twenty other guys. We were put on an old school bus, and started the hour drive to Fort Wayne. Actually, I'm not really sure if that was its name or not. I'm pretty sure it was in that area south of Detroit that always confused me, and know for certain it was a bit over an hour's bus ride from the Draft Board office. In my pocket was a letter from my doctor stating I had a severe form of hemophilia and really wasn't what the Army was looking for. After my initial 1-A classification my doctor had had a copy of my entire hospital record sent to the Selective Service, but I took a letter from him to the physical on the off chance no one had noticed the three very large cartons kicking around the office filled with papers detailing my medical history since 1958.<br />
<br />
<br />
The first morning was devoted to psychological tests. About 150 guys from all over southeast Michigan sitting at school desks in a room with nice, large windows overlooking a broad lawn. On each desk were two #2 pencils, nicely sharpened, and a rather thick booklet with a front cover that was blank except for the statement: Do not open until ordered. When the hands on the clock snapped to 7:00, a Sergeant at the front of the room began talking. He was speaking in the overly loud monotone they always show military men using, and for a few seconds I was amused by how cartoon like it was. Then I dawned on me that he was giving us the directions for the test and I hadn't a clue to what he had said.<br />
<br />
<br />
Fortunately, when he got to the end and shouted, "Are there any questions?" someone near the front had the courage to raise his hand. The instructions were shouted again, and by concentrating I was able to pick out the more important points. Staring intently at his watch, he counted off the seconds and told us to begin.<br />
<br />
<br />
There were sections that asked us to pick the most moral choice between what were often very bizarre situations. You were given choices like was it better have an affair with your wife's best friend, or preach sermons for a religion you knew was false. There were sections that asked us to indicate which of three things we would rather do. Sometimes this was easy because it would be things you could relate to like: "Would you rather a) Read a book, b) Go to a concert, c) Sail a boat." Sometimes, however, you would get something like: "Would you rather a) Learn Swedish, b) Sit in room temperature aspic, c) Get a tattoo." There were sections that dissected our family relations, hopes, dreams and brought to light whole forests of unresolved conflicts we didn't know we were denying. By the time we were done they knew pretty much everything about us including if, unknown to you, you had a latent tendency to look at apple pies in a disturbing way.<br />
<br />
<br />
After that, and a cigarette break, (which some of the guys really seemed to need) we went back in to examine the limits of our loyalty to God, country, and the American way of life. There were questions much like before, but this time aimed at discovering whether or not we could be trusted with secrets, or would be apt to blab to the first Red Agent that came our way the correct way to pack a footlocker. There were also questions that explored what your priorities might be. Things like, if your hometown was invaded would you obey the orders of your Boy Scout Troop Leader, or stay at home to protect your mother. We also listed all the organizations we had ever joined. I put down the Boy Scouts, Explorers, Future Teachers of America, Science Club and the Lone Ranger's Secret Posse. We listed all the organizations we had attended meetings for but had not officially joined. I dutifully listed Students for a Democratic Society, the Methodist Church, and the high school Chess Club. Then there was about three pages of names of organizations in very small type, and we were to check off the ones we had ever, in any way, been involved with and forgot to list before.<br />
<br />
<br />
Finally, after having finally confessed having admiration for Adlai Stevenson and a deep distrust of Republicans, they said we had had finished the psychological part of the examination. A few names were called out, and those guys were told to remain in their seats. The rest of us were told to follow a Corporal. I noticed that several of the guys who stayed behind had been the ones most disturbingly in need of cigarette after the ethics quiz. The Corporal took us to a very large locker room and told us to undress down to our underpants and shoes, no socks, and put any valuables in the paper lunch bag provided along with the key to the locker. Then we were to line up at the far door.<br />
<br />
<br />
When we had all gotten into line we were taken outside and across the lawn to another building. Here and there, usually under a tree, were picnic tables and at most of the tables people were eating their lunch—a large percentage of them were women. From the way they overwhelmingly failed to take notice made me suspect that the sight of a hundred or so young men going from building to building in nothing but their Y-fronts (there were a few boxers also and one or two what we called French bikinis) had lost a lot of its novelty.<br />
<br />
<br />
In the next building things got down to business.The rooms, and sometimes different area within a room were labeled with large numbers, and we were to make our way from Station 1 onward and upward. We were weighed, blood was drawn, hearts listened to, vision and hearing checked, blood pressure checked, lungs listened to, and urine collected (one enterprising young man was charging a $1 to fill the cup of those who couldn't). In one room with a row of cubicles we, one by one, stepped up and turned our heads and coughed. I noticed that the doctors (?) had plexiglass shields between them and us they had to reach under. Every time I came across some one with clothes on I would show them my letter, and they always responded "Station 26."<br />
<br />
<br />
They looked at our feet quite carefully, and how we walked, and we had to verify which was our dominant hand. Finally we came to a very large room with five long rows of squares marked out with tape on the floor. As we came in we were lined up in the last row of squares and told to drop our drawers, take our shoes off and set our bag of valuables down next to our right foot. There we stood carefully concentrating of the back of the head of the guy in front of us, while the guys in the front row went through a few calisthenics that ended with them turning to face us, and bending over while this old man walked down the line.<br />
<br />
<br />
As soon as the front row was done they put their underpants and shoes back on and left. Then each row would move up one square pushing their shorts, shoes and paper bag along with their feet, and a new bunch would come in the fill the last row. Why we had to get naked as soon as we came in, and why they had to have us all in there waiting for our turn was never explained. Perhaps we needed a cooling off period.<br />
<br />
<br />
Eventually it was my row's turn at the front. We were told to touch our toes, do a couple jumping jacks (not an exercise made for nude execution), and then we were told to do three deep knee bends. I tried to raise an objection because my knees, the left one especially, were not really strong enough for deep knee bends. I was given the choice of bucking up like a man and doing the squats, or I could stay overnight for further examinations. Trying the squats sounded like the better alternative. The first one went pretty well, but it wasn't deep enough for the guy in charge, so on the second and third ones I went as far down as I could. Meanwhile, a black kid two spaces to my right kept mumbling about banging his 'thang' on the cold floor. During my third squat there was a pain in my left knee, and I had a little trouble getting up. I knew this was not going to end well, but it was made very clear that it was not the Army's problem.<br />
<br />
<br />
Then came the finalé. We were told to turn around, bend over, and spread 'em. Just bending over three feet away from another nude man has, all on its own, a few aspects that are, well, awkward, but having to spread your butt cheeks at the same time while an old man examines you like you were a beagle in a dog show just adds layers of absurdity and humiliation that took my mind completely off my knee.<br />
<br />
<br />
Pulling up our underpants and slipping on our shoes we made our way out the exit to the next station which happened to be the locker room which, you will remember, was in a building on the other side of the parade grounds. Now, our first trip across the grounds had been as a large group; and just as a wildebeest finds comfort in having a few thousand fellow wildebeest around him to divert the attention of the local lions, I felt much more naked and exposed walking across the lawn with this smaller group that I had that morning. When we got to the locker room we were told to get dressed, and then walk across to another building for our final stations.<br />
<br />
<br />
This was Station 26, and I got my letter out and smoothed some of the wrinkles out of it. This Station was a large room with several desks for different letters of the alphabet. I waited my turn at the desk for 'A-B' and looked around. At one end of the room was a smaller room with just one desk, and it was labeled 'Station 29.' The unique aspect of Station 29 was the person running it. She was beautiful. Except for the clerks at the distant picnic tables when we made our nearly naked migrations across the lawn, everyone we had met that day had been male, definitely passed middle-aged, and usually in a less than pleasant mood. And they usually had that rumpled look that spoke of failed expectations and easy access to whisky. Station 29, however, was young and gorgeous, and was wearing a rather short skirt, and had very long, very dark red hair.<br />
<br />
<br />
My thoughts were interrupted by being called up the chair next to the 'A-B' desk. I showed this doctor my letter, and he looked at it briefly and then took a long, hard look at the results of the various tests and measurements performed that day. He asked me if the hammer toe on my left foot ever bothered me, and a couple other questions, and then asked me if I had any questions. I asked him how you got to Station 29. He kind of smiled, and said you have to have been convicted of a sex crime like rape.<br />
<br />
<br />
From there we were put back on our bus and taken back to the sidewalk in front of the Draft Board Office we had started from about ten hours previously. By the time we got there my leg had started swelling, and by the time my parents picked me up it was bad enough we just drove straight to Ann Arbor so I could start getting some treatment. That hemorrhage took three weeks to get under control, and it was close to four weeks before I could go home. My father tried very hard to sue the Selective Service, but it was, at that time at least, one of those departments that had to give you permission to sue them before you could sue them; and for some reason that permission just wasn't forthcoming.<br />
<br />
<br />
Several weeks after I got home I got my new draft card, and found out I was I-Y. It was that hammer toe on my left foot. While not quite good enough for the peacetime army, it could keep me from marching for long distances, I could, and would, be called up if war was finally declared. The Draft Board Clerk for our county just could not give out a 4-F, but because of the findings of the physical she had to give me some kind of deferment so she licked her wounds by giving me the 1-Y. The years passed and in due course I turned 26. That week I received another card listing me as 5-W, I think. I was now too old to be drafted. Three months later another Draft Card came in the mail. I was 4-F.<br />
</div>gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-35945143952400134412009-02-06T10:44:00.001-07:002009-10-10T22:42:31.038-07:00Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad . . .I had my first run in with a social worker when I was about sixteen. I was in the hospital with some kind of hemorrhage—most likely my knee or hip, but who knows. One afternoon I was sitting in my bed reading, just minding my own business when a somewhat older (late twenties or early thirties) woman came up to my bed and introduced herself. At first I thought she was from the Hospital School because she wasn't wearing any kind of uniform or doctor's lab coat, but it was the wrong time of day for them (and I knew all the teachers) which left the Chaplain's office. I was not in the mood for another discussion about how some god, or his son, could help me through this "difficult time," or perhaps even end them forever. (If you took their reasoning to its logical end this god, or his son, was responsible for the "difficult time" in the first place, and I was just not quite ready or willing to thank him for having bestowed this special blessing on me. But I digress.)<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>She sat down in my visitor's chair, told me her name and said she was one of the hospital's social workers. I began to relax a little. At least I wasn't going to be having any theological debates. Also, since I didn't know what a social worker did, there was a slim chance she might be there to arrange my attendance at hospital parties and picnics where one might meet young ladies whose purpose in life was to ease one's suffering during this "difficult time" and help fill the lonely hours of one's recovery. That daydream was delicately shattered when she said she would like to talk to me a bit about my condition. The way she said the word 'condition' placed it firmly in italics or quotation marks, and seemed to indicate it was best not mentioned in polite company.<br />
<br />
I said, "Okay." I had learned long ago to be careful when talking to civilians when I was in the hospital. Until you knew what their motives were it was best to give careful, non-committal answers. Otherwise you might find yourself being whisked off to a service for a religion you had never heard of; or attending a concert of traditional mariachi tunes played on bagpipes on the 12th floor sun porch; or sitting on a stretcher on the stage of an auditorium with 300 students staring intently at you while they took copious notes about how you came to be there. You never really got out of the last one, but at least you had some warning about what was coming and could make sure your fly was securely buttoned.<br />
<br />
Despite the inability of my blood to clot, I was a reasonably healthy sixteen-year-old young man with a set of reasonably healthy hormones, and being visited by an attractive, somewhat older young lady was not an entirely disagreeable event. I propped myself up on one elbow and tried to look as suave as was possible while wearing hospital issue pajamas and having one leg packed in ice.<br />
<br />
"It says in your chart that you are a hemophiliac, and I was hoping to visit with you and make sure you understood what that meant, and to let you and your parents know that I am here to help you." She crossed her legs, and tucked her skirt tightly around them. Some of my hopes of a pleasant afternoon began fading. "Now then, you do know what hemophilia is, don't you?"<br />
<br />
"Yes. My blood is missing a protein, and because of that it doesn't clot."<br />
<br />
"Yes, well now, when exactly did you learn you are a hemophiliac?"<br />
<br />
"I've known it all of my life. My parents found out when I was three days old when the doctor circumcised me."<br />
<br />
She started flipping back and forth in my records, to find the documentation of this event. "I don't see anything about that." Her tone of voice indicated she half believed she had caught me in a lie.<br />
<br />
"I was born in Idaho, so it's not in your records."<br />
<br />
"Okay, so you know it's an inherited disease, and that if you have children you'll be spreading the disease."<br />
<br />
"Yeah. My mother's father has hemophilia, two of my cousins have it and my little brother has it. I know how the genetics work." I was starting to get annoyed. Ever since I had even begun to perhaps slightly appear to be starting puberty people, always well meaning and for my own good of course, had been giving me variations on The Eugenics Sermon. They just knew that after I thought about it I would get sterilized, join a monastery, never marry or have children because I wouldn't want to continue this tragic curse would I? Much to my relief, she changed the focus of her questions.<br />
<br />
"What grade are you in this year?"<br />
<br />
"Ninth."<br />
<br />
"What school are you going to?"<br />
<br />
"Tecumseh High School."<br />
<br />
"Hmmm. Public high school." She flipped back and forth in my chart for a while, and then continued, "Do you get along well there? By that I mean are you able to keep up in your classes and take part in social activities; or do you find that your condition," there were those verbal italics again, "makes it hard to take part in things or make friends?"<br />
<br />
My relief dissolved faster than you could say Rolaids. "I get along okay. I can't take gym, but that's okay with me. I've never been real keen on taking showers with other guys."<br />
<br />
She gave me the kind of tight, little smile that strict, no nonsense types always give when they think an attempt at humor or wit has been made. She was there to talk to me about serious stuff like how my <span style="font-style: italic;">condition</span> was supposed to make my life miserable, and she wasn't going to tolerate any attempts to make things a bit more pleasant.<br />
<br />
If she had asked me that a few years later, and hadn't been such a tight ass, I might have told her that sometimes it was hard to get a date to a big dance like Homecoming because the girls, quite understandably, didn't want to buy a dress, talk their parents into letting them stay out later than usual, and look forward to a fun evening and then have my mother call them the day before the dance and say she was sorry, but I was in the hospital and wouldn't be able to take her after all; and there were a couple of fathers who wouldn't let their daughters date a cripple; but that was in the future and those were problems and bigots I hadn't run into yet.<br />
<br />
"Well," she said in her best this-is-no-laughing-matter voice, "doesn't it sometimes make you angry that you can't do all the things normal kids do?"<br />
<br />
"Not really."<br />
<br />
"Really? I think I would be very angry if I couldn't play sports, and was in the hospital all the time."<br />
<br />
I didn't know what to say to her, but it was clear she wasn't going to go away until I said something. "Getting angry wouldn't help anything. All that would do is make people stay away from me. And who would I get mad at? My Mom for having a defective gene? Grandpa for giving it to her? The great-grandmother that gave it to him? God for creating it? You can't get mad at nothing. It wouldn't make anything better, and you'd just end up feeling worse."<br />
<br />
"But it's so unfair."<br />
<br />
"Look around you." I was getting pissed, and not in the British sense. "It wasn't fair that Bobby down at the end got his face blown off when his dad squirted lighter fluid on the grill. They took Elaine out to a hall room today because she's probably going to die soon. That's not real fair. It isn't fair that anyone is in here, but there isn't any such thing as fair. Things happen and the universe doesn't give a damn if they're good or bad, and if you spend all your time crying because something isn't fair you'll never do anything to make them better."<br />
<br />
A couple of days later, a doctor came by for a chat. He was from the Psychiatric Department, and he had come by because 'they' were worried that I was having trouble coming to terms with being a hemophiliac. We talked about Boy Scouts, girls, being a drummer, music in general (he liked jazz and I liked folk), swimming and school. After a while he got up to go, and asked casually if there was anything he could do for me. I said, "Yeah. You could keep social workers away from me." He laughed and said he understood.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-86978653950667846552009-02-01T14:57:00.004-07:002009-10-10T22:42:56.429-07:00I can see by your eyes friend your almost gone . . .Yesterday, as I sat in the ER waiting for some pain medication to take hold, I made what I considered a cogent observation. Or it could have just been the drugs.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>When I was younger one of my most important pain management techniques was reading. For reasons I never fully understood the hospital's administration had ruled that patients with hemophilia were not to be given any narcotics for pain relief. Ever. This ruling lasted until I was in college. As a result you did whatever you could to deal with what was politely called "the discomfort." Ice was a major player, as was building models, talking, imagining how that condescendingly smug intern would cope with this "discomfort," or anything else that would keep your mind occupied. For me that meant reading.<br />
<br />
I read everything. I read the full copy of the advertisements for army men in comic books. I read the thirty page articles, all three of them, about the history of storm drain gratings in Northeast Brooklyn in 'The New Yorker.' I read whatever novels had been left within twenty yards of my bed. I read the instructions on the IV kits. (Step Three was my favorite: Remove cover from needle.) I even read my text books. (The House Committee on UnAmerican Activities found nothing technically unAmerican in the last one, but they let me know they were keeping an eye on me.)<br />
<br />
By the time the hospital had made TV available to each bed they were allowing us, by that I mean bleeders, to be given narcotics, so I never really tested television's worthiness as a pain management technique. For the last several years whenever I had to hospitalized I always took a stack of books and magazines, but I noticed I wasn't really reading them. I would try to read but I would find myself rereading the same paragraph or sentence over and over and over and still not know what it said. So I would watch the TV. I wouldn't know what was going on there either, but it didn't seem to matter. Given enough morphine even the hospital's diabetes care channel became fascinating.<br />
<br />
Yesterday I had, out of habit, taken a book with me when I went to the ER. In the waiting room, and exam room I read my book and pretty much ignored the televisions. After the doctor had seen me and ordered some pain medication, I found myself losing interest in the book and being drawn to the television. All of life I had thought it was just the increase in availability that had caused the decline in my hospital reading, but no. It was the drugs.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-32325848154970515792008-10-24T00:57:00.004-07:002009-10-10T22:43:18.023-07:00Doctor, Doctor! Mr M D . . .<a href="http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20081024TDY02307.htm">Todai hospital also turned new mom away : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)</a><br />
<br />
I have always known that Japan was more hide bound about following the rules than the Chairwoman of a Methodist Church flower committee. Everyone in a school or corporation dresses alike, and they all change from winter uniforms to summer uniforms on the same day, and damn the weather. But this article about a woman dying because hospitals seemed to think that the number of beds their policy manual states they will have is more important than the number of people who are actually in critical need really takes the cake.<br />
<br />
When a desperately ill person arrives at your emergency room, it's not something you can handle by using your best imitation of Eddie Izzard imitating James Mason while blocking the patients entrance. "Dreadfully sorry and all that, but you see we can only take nine patients, and I'm afraid we've reached our quota. Trauma surgeon's already complaining about having to work five and six hours at a stretch. But look, I'm not really supposed to tell you this but, just between you and me, Yamaguchi doesn't look good. If you can hang about for a few hours chances are an opening will appear. What do you have? Massive brain hemorrhage? That could be dicey. Yamaguchi's got a bum heart, and they never seem to move along when you need them to. Anyway, good luck. <br />
<br />
What do these so called hospitals do when there is a train wreck or a building collapse? Hold a raffle? "Okay, there's fourteen of you in critical condition and twenty-three that are merely serious. Well, the staff took a vote and they decided they would take three criticals and four serious. So what we're going to do is give each of you one of these carnival tickets and put its mate in this bedpan here. Then we'll do a drawing. Remember! Just three critical and four serious. As for the rest of you, well, it is a lovely day."<br />
<br />
Sorry about this, but I feel the need to shout. THESE ARE HOSPITALS DAMMIT! <br />
<br />
They don't decide they'll do a spot of healing today, and then maybe take a long weekend. They take what comes to them. If they have nine beds for neonatal emergencies, and nature thoughtlessly presents them with a tenth—THEY TAKE IT. Bassinets are moved a bit, maybe a laundry cart is put in the hall. You make room. Then the staff figures out how to divide up the load. What you don't ever do. Never, ever do is condemn people to death just because it's inconvenient, doesn't follow the official guidelines, or you would have to go to all the bother of finding a space. You are in the business of saving lives. That's your priority. Only that.<br />
<br />
So if the Second Assistant Floor Director comes around throwing a stink about how there seem to be ten beds here and the Guidelines clearly state the room was built for nine. Invite him to take it up with the third bridge from the North, and offer to write a press release clearly stating he was the person who decided the critically injured woman expecting her first child had to die because treating her would have clearly deviated from the Holy Official Guidelines, which seem to be more precious than any mere lifegbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-46151758019571149202008-10-11T20:16:00.002-07:002008-10-11T20:40:58.856-07:00I would like to apologize for my friend here . . .Aside from the sister-in-law who lives in Michigan, it seems that the majority of the people wandering onto this blog are algebra students. At least I think they are algebra students. The reason I am not a retired architect instead of a retired bookseller is that my math abilities are comparable to my ability to fly. That is, largely a matter for my dreams. They could be physics or chemistry students for all I know, but the phrasing of their searches leads me to believe they are struggling with a math problem; and since algebra is the branch of mathematics I understand least, I assume that's the kind of math.<br /><br />Anyway, these poor souls are doing Google searches for "missing factor" or some similar phrase, and Google obligingly directs them here. I imagine it can be quite frustrating to be desperately searching for the answer to a homework problem or help preparing for a test and suddenly find yourself looking at the ramblings of some old geezer.<br /><br />For this I sincerely apologize. I hope the exam goes well, and that you do find an answer to your missing factor problem<br /><br />If it is any help, the missing factor in my life has always been 9. <span class="fullpost">gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-3365516920987688912008-09-16T23:49:00.005-07:002009-10-10T22:43:56.277-07:00Tan shoes and pink shoelaces . . .When a person reaches my age it is not too unusual for them to start talking about how great things were in some semi-mythical period in the past. For me it would be the 1950s. There are, however, very few things I want to resurrect. Don't get me wrong, I have lots of great memories of my youth—like the magic of slow-dancing with a girl to "Harlem Nocturne"—it's just that I also remember the not so pleasant things. We may be going to hell in a hand basket now, but we were headed that way then too. The basket is just a different style now.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Having said that, the one thing I do miss from the 50s is the uniforms hospital workers wore. When I go to the hospital now everyone is either wearing scrubs, those bizarrely patterned polyester tunic outfits, or a lab coat. You don't know if the person coming into your room is a nurse, doctor, therapist, HMO spy or from housekeeping. The only thing you have to identify them, besides their word, is their name tag and the females usually wear theirs backwards so you can't see them. I guess to keep the wrong people from learning their name.<br />
<br />
It weren't that way in my day.<br />
<br />
Everybody had a uniform, and you knew immediately what that person was allowed to do to you by how they were dressed. That can be very comforting to a young kid.<br />
<br />
At the University of Michigan Hospitals they were:<br />
<br />
<ul><li>Housekeeping: Males had a tan V-necked shirt and tan pants.<br />
</li>
<li>Housekeeping: Females wore a yellow dress.</li>
<li>Porters: (They took things, including patients, places.) A green V-necked shirt and tan pants. They were always male.</li>
<li>Orderlies: (Kind of a male nurse's or therapist's aide except they did more lifting.) Blue V-necked shirt and tan pants.</li>
<li>Nurse's Aide: A bright yellow dress.</li>
<li>Practical Nurse: (LPN) White uniform (dress), stockings and shoes. Her cap had a gray stripe.</li>
<li>Student Nurse: A blue and white pin-striped uniform (dress) with white stockings and shoes. I don't know what a male student would have worn. I never saw one until after the uniforms were abolished. Their cap told you what year student they were. Sophomores' caps were plain white; juniors' had a thin black stripe; and seniors' had a wide black stripe.</li>
<li>RNs: Male (Until the late 60s I only knew of one in the whole hospital. He mostly worked on the male orthopedic surgery ward.) White uniform shirt, pants, belt and shoes.</li>
<li>RNs: Females wore a white uniform with white cap, stockings and shoes. I know they were unhygienic as hell, but I loved the caps. Each nursing school had its own cap design and the only things they had in common were that they were white and had some kind of black ribbon. It was a bit like bird watching. (The pun was unintended, but I'll accept it.) I got pretty good at being able to identify most of the schools in the Michigan, Ohio, Indiana regions, and even knew a few Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania schools.</li>
<li>3rd Year Med Students: They wore dress clothes (dress shirt, tie, slacks for men; comparable dress or skirt and blouse for women) with a white sport coat styled jacket. They were also pretty adept at keeping a stethoscope, and anything else medical they could find, draped around their neck.</li>
<li>Interns: White shirt, white pants, white shoes along with the white sport coat. They could however pick out their own tie. One, a Dr Reinarz by name, opted for the Ben Casey Tunic, complete with top three buttons undone, but he had other issues too. Women, of course, wore a white skirt, but they could also wear a regular blouse under the jacket, and natural colored stockings.</li>
<li>1st Year Residents: (Not to be confused with the glorified interns they call 1st year residents these days.) Back to street dress clothes, but with a three quarter length lab coat, and less insistence on the casually draped stethoscope.<br />
</li>
<li>2nd and 3rd Year Residents: Basically the same, except less insistence on the casually draped stethoscope. The coat could also get a tad longer as long as it clearly wasn't knee length.</li>
<li>House Doctors: They wore the knee length lab coats.</li>
<li>Department Head: Their coat went to about mid-calf.</li>
</ul>There you have it. A University of Michigan Hospitals survival guide for 1950 to 1965 or thereabouts. Just one word of warning. If you meet up with an elderly gentleman with a lab coat that just about trailed along the floor: politely step aside; speak only if spoken to (it can be a high honor—or the end of your career); bowing is no longer mandatory but some of the really old guys still feel it lends a touch of respect to the proceedings.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-2789809625982765892008-08-21T23:23:00.005-07:002010-02-13T11:54:42.601-07:00First thing I remember . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZ-PAMPImL9f3rn0F-KjeYRdMIo2yaMQVUtdYr3FUW01Ni3SE9-2wEvSfaugKlBv8Zzh8cB1io6cTYWzmpYoxZp1AepzOXjyJzPO6HDHYhE6_uyBQlAgwfkoTP3NdBQGVb2DVDL0VcVLP/s1600-h/Fox+Building+in+Hailey,+Idaho.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5241911196790634834" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaZ-PAMPImL9f3rn0F-KjeYRdMIo2yaMQVUtdYr3FUW01Ni3SE9-2wEvSfaugKlBv8Zzh8cB1io6cTYWzmpYoxZp1AepzOXjyJzPO6HDHYhE6_uyBQlAgwfkoTP3NdBQGVb2DVDL0VcVLP/s320/Fox+Building+in+Hailey,+Idaho.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;" /></a><br />
I was born in 1946 in Hailey, Idaho. My memories of the event are fuzzy at best, but my parents told me it was in a clinic/hospital on the second floor of the Fox Building which also had the town's dry goods/general store. I believe Bruce Willis owns it now, but that has absolutely nothing to do with my story. The house my parents lived in at the time was a natural foods boutique when we were there in 1981, but that also has no bearing on anything unless, of course, you are in the market for some organic legumes.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>Hailey is not a town you hear of often, if at all, and seems content to sit at the base of the mountain and let Ketchum a little further up the hill, and Sun Valley at the top garner all the publicity. Its most famous native son is Ezra Pound; and while I think his political stance was not all that different from the town's, they don't seem to know what to do about the accusations of treason and mental illness and as a result were not quite sure if they should be playing him up or sweeping him under the carpet. The usual tactic was to divert attention to Hemingway who had lived/died up in Ketchum, and to the time Sun Valley hosted the Winter Olympics.<br />
<br />
Because my grandfather had hemophilia my mother gave the doctor strict instructions that if she had a boy he was not to be circumcised until they had determined whether or not he/me also had it. Like many doctors of the time he didn't really believe there was such a thing as hemophilia; and, according to my mother, he felt she was just being a hysterical, over protective mother who didn't want to see her darling baby 'mutilated.' There were also some indications he wanted to go hunting and didn't want to wait around performing some probably meaningless tests. So, on the third day of my initial orientation to the world I was circumcised.<br />
<br />
I bled for three weeks.<br />
<br />
<br />
The way my mother tells it the doctor came to her that afternoon and asked if she knew of any way to stop my bleeding. Here the story gets vague for a bit, but what I've been able to piece together is this: She asked some rather pointed questions. He made some slightly less than direct replies. She then discussed his intelligence, ancestry, and the possibility of inbreeding. Then they got to work on me.<br />
<br />
Now, for most of my life actual cuts have not been as big a problem as people expect. The usual melodramatic depiction is of a young boy receiving a small wound, perhaps with a pocket knife, and then bleeding to death in a matter of minutes as small children and animals are washed out to sea by the torrent. There were even doctors who were afraid to give us injections because they were convinced we would bleed uncontrolled from the site. It just doesn't work that way.<br />
<br />
For things like injection sites there is usually enough tension in the skin to close it up and prevent bleeding. At the very worst a good bandage would do the job. For slightly larger cuts the treatment was basically the same as it would be for you. Using a good bandage would stop the bleeding mechanically. Usually. The big danger, and problem was internal bleeding. There was no way to apply pressure, and small injuries that might not even cause a bruise on most people would turn into a badly swollen, very painful, crippling joint hemorrhage.<br />
<br />
Back to the problem at hand, so to speak.<br />
<br />
Because of the location of the incision putting a pressure bandage on just didn't work. Everything they tried just slipped off. Finally they came to the realization that they were going to have to apply pressure manually. For the next three weeks my mother, a nurse or two, and occasionally the doctor and my father took turns applying pressure to the end of my penis until the bleeding stopped and things healed up.<br />
<br />
My wife says it explains a lot.<br />
<br />
My parents were not litigious people, and it never occurred to them that they might have sued the doctor, but they did refuse to pay the bills from him and the clinic. Once or twice a lawyer representing the doctor contacted them and made threatening noises about taking them to court over the unpaid bills; but they just said, "Go ahead. We look forward to explaining to the court why we didn't pay. That was the last they ever heard from them.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-75480450600676021842008-08-02T23:59:00.007-07:002009-10-10T22:45:00.627-07:00And then it begins . . .<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMBhUyLsk4X7Ps1hDczRP25CzBwipAfcrLtTmIcaRx56pFcvnoYwuWjpRTxu4PrFCXtp2kYCDEW5SpZomT0h871QwqJNLv596vCPeSEUj8pfiJxysErzDkvQIWfgtyk2d7gDnsDEeTAW4/s1600-h/bigstockphoto_Hypodermic_Syringe__Needles_1615908.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230449186582424914" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwMBhUyLsk4X7Ps1hDczRP25CzBwipAfcrLtTmIcaRx56pFcvnoYwuWjpRTxu4PrFCXtp2kYCDEW5SpZomT0h871QwqJNLv596vCPeSEUj8pfiJxysErzDkvQIWfgtyk2d7gDnsDEeTAW4/s320/bigstockphoto_Hypodermic_Syringe__Needles_1615908.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; height: 270px; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; width: 200px;" /></a><br />
I am old enough to remember the old non-disposable hypodermic needles. From my early childhood until right around eighth or ninth grade every time I had a serious hemorrhage one of my arms (usually the right because it had a huge vein the med students loved) would be strapped down to a board for the IV. The needles were quite large compared to those used today because they had to be strong enough to go through repeated cleanings, and they had absolutely no give to them so your arm, or whatever, had to be kept rigidly straight if the needle was anywhere near the wrist or elbow. When you coupled the thick metal with a large bore for blood you got a very thick needle with a fairly large bevel on the end.<br />
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And that was where the fun began.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>At University of Michigan Hospitals (they used to be very fussy about that final 's') during the 50s and 60s they did not have phlebotomists, and nurses were not allowed to draw blood or start IVs. Any IV had to be started by the medical staff; and since the joy of scutt work always flows down hill, it was almost always a third year medical student or an intern who was starting your IV. (When I got too old for the pediatric service my care switched over to Simpson Service, the hematology/oncology department. They didn't allow anyone lower than a full Fellow (third year resident) to treat their inpatients. Getting a new Fellow was almost worse than getting a student because they were usually out of practice and it took a few months for them to get back into form.)<br />
<br />
Anyway, having the students and interns start the IVs meant you could play little tricks on them that you wouldn't dare do to the nurses. Unlike the doctors, the nurses stuck together. If you did something to one of them they would close ranks and make your life a living hell. It wouldn't be anything you could really complain about (at least not if you wanted to survive that trip to the hospital); but your intramuscular shots would be given with a touch more vigor, pain medication might take an extra ten minutes to arrive, or you might discover your bedpan had come straight from the autoclave when you put your butt down on it.<br />
<br />
Doctors, on the other hand, were fair game. Unless their white coat reached their knee or below you could do pretty much whatever you could think of. And interns were especially good targets. They were usually cocky and quite often arrogant because they had MD after their name, and the nurses, and even some first and second year residents, would usually help you bring them down a notch or two.<br />
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The usual pattern with IVs was to put them as low, near the wrist, on the arm as possible. That way as the IVs went bad they could work their way up your arm. Our IVs would go bad for a variety of reasons, but the usual causes were either they had infiltrated (the needle had poked/torn through the vein), or a clot had formed in the needle. The various products we were treated with over the years may not have been all that effective, but they still had a higher than usual percentage of the proteins that trigger clots, and would quite often cause a blockage unless the saline used between treatments was kept flowing at a fairly high rate. We would joke among ourselves that the only place a hemophiliac clotted was in the needle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8uGx5AxkDuAyeHzpQ1Twhzxybu85qpYT3rntpqA9hDv2qrzeIdeT_ppy-SowebxE0XeehSNYX6oXYXlZoukM0RC1HS3A8r-zGow8VbM2Zg0B5cpSKd8ZAhS6D3ucV1TSVdIeG7T__fJD/s1600-h/bigstockphoto_Needle_And_Medicine_3272852.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5230449461176143586" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8uGx5AxkDuAyeHzpQ1Twhzxybu85qpYT3rntpqA9hDv2qrzeIdeT_ppy-SowebxE0XeehSNYX6oXYXlZoukM0RC1HS3A8r-zGow8VbM2Zg0B5cpSKd8ZAhS6D3ucV1TSVdIeG7T__fJD/s320/bigstockphoto_Needle_And_Medicine_3272852.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 218px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 291px;" /></a>Now because of the size of the needles and the length of the bevel on the end, if the IV was in your forearm you could often control the flow by tensing and relaxing the muscles around it. When you would tense up the muscle the bevel of the needle would be pressed against the side of the vein and the IV would slow down or stop; and conversely, when you relaxed it would flow unimpeded. As he (it was almost always a he) made the final adjustments on the little flow regulator you would tense up a little. He would get it set at a speed he liked and then you would relax. All of a sudden it would be running way too fast, and as soon as he touched the regulator you'd tighten up and stop it completely. If you were good, and didn't start laughing you could keep him there fussing with the tape and the regulator for a half an hour or so.<br />
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I imagine that this little bit of fun is a vanished part of the past along with only having three TV stations, and dancing to a stack of 45s. What with peripheral catheter thingys and PICC lines and ports and self-infusion at home driving an intern a little nuts isn't the same as it use to be. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-26116467243792991212008-06-30T12:41:00.007-07:002008-07-14T02:19:51.448-07:00Signs, signs, everywhere a sign . . .<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPn4pFtEjDB_tD9vMUVUvCW7Ig6hgx7dHkvorbHPCvUUh7ioGdd4z5hoVWCfaYDoyUfpPre46wfCuOv4E83mc9BZamuFdCN49pstA7x9TfIoD21G1Lu4_KDGBHdkFXfTv-7aDKEEHSfYH/s1600-h/CIMG0312.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQPn4pFtEjDB_tD9vMUVUvCW7Ig6hgx7dHkvorbHPCvUUh7ioGdd4z5hoVWCfaYDoyUfpPre46wfCuOv4E83mc9BZamuFdCN49pstA7x9TfIoD21G1Lu4_KDGBHdkFXfTv-7aDKEEHSfYH/s320/CIMG0312.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222795926857456834" border="0" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: center;">Sometimes Arizona is a very strange place.<span class="fullpost"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWwdbbwOOxka3-JdtUmmEqBKZtrjfkozV506P69HHJjvus4euip9aYswtx6AEWTKPEdeX84M0myz2V7Zh2M7jSKm1loEq5jnbmIW0tnfqIHn0BLvdqPP9st3o-eECfVNJSBDspl-U-hoG/s1600-h/CIMG0370_1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLWwdbbwOOxka3-JdtUmmEqBKZtrjfkozV506P69HHJjvus4euip9aYswtx6AEWTKPEdeX84M0myz2V7Zh2M7jSKm1loEq5jnbmIW0tnfqIHn0BLvdqPP9st3o-eECfVNJSBDspl-U-hoG/s320/CIMG0370_1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222794309423260770" border="0" /></a>Sink placement is always an adventure.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76Hveg7a0aexMgxFHWGN-uElHTnt5s8L8i0Tp_TMlu2Kq4_QU6YEPcqpS6hyoAP2tPv1FrxuIxtNYKeiciHz3U2tiK3IczAIUel5WoqFAba5uJJnueR9yYfzJuprEogSg8K-EF9MootDm/s1600-h/CIMG0420.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh76Hveg7a0aexMgxFHWGN-uElHTnt5s8L8i0Tp_TMlu2Kq4_QU6YEPcqpS6hyoAP2tPv1FrxuIxtNYKeiciHz3U2tiK3IczAIUel5WoqFAba5uJJnueR9yYfzJuprEogSg8K-EF9MootDm/s320/CIMG0420.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222790916027366642" border="0" /></a>When I think of buying a new Lexus, I think giant sumo.<br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div></div></span>gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2866419825231400899.post-39698496227723536382008-06-18T23:18:00.011-07:002009-10-10T22:45:41.849-07:00Until they take it away . . .A few years ago, which is old fart talk for ten or twelve, my wife got an assignment in New York for ten weeks. Unfortunately they didn't see the need to send me too, so I was left here to feed the cats. One Saturday after about four weeks I decided the apartment needed a really good cleaning. The plan was to clean everything, take a shower and reward myself with a really good lunch/dinner.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Since it was just me and the cats I worked in my boxers. (Please don't try to picture that.) It took a couple hours, but I got the bathroom gleaming like a showroom. Then I moved on to the living room. Dusting only took a few minutes, and then it was time to vacuum the carpet. At that time we had a cannister vacuum with a long hose, and the hose had cracked in a couple places. My wife, being the frugal person she is, had simply wrapped some duct tape around it rather than replace it or the vacuum. I mentioned getting a new hose/vacuum a couple of times, but since her repair seemed to work fairly well I didn't push the matter. That day, however, the vacuum just wasn't picking anything up.<br />
<br />
After a few minutes investigation I could see that a clump of hair and <span style="font-style: italic;">stuff</span> was sticking to the tape and blocking the hose. I needed to get the tape off, but I didn't want to use one of my good kitchen knives. My solution was to use a folding knife the company had given me as part of some anniversary gift. One thing led to another, and it ended up with the blade folding back and making a very deep slice up the outside of my thumb almost to the joint. <br />
<br />
I jumped back into the bathroom, grabbed a paper towel and wrapped it around my thumb as tightly as I could while I looked for more suitable bandages. It quickly soaked through and I was dripping all over the place. While I was putting a fresh paper towel around it I saw that the knife had made a triangular flap that started at the end of my thumb and went down to the first joint. It looked like the blade had slid down the side of the bone.<br />
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I found some gauze and tape and put a proper bandage on, but it was soon soaked through. By the time I got some walking shorts and a t-shirt on it had to be replaced. For a few seconds I thought about changing my shorts and shirt because they had gotten pretty splattered when I put them on, but realized that could become a very vicious circle.<br />
<br />
Grabbing my keys and wallet, and slipping on some loafers, I went down to the car. My car had a manual transmission, and it was my right hand that was injured. Luckily I had a towel in the car I could drip on, and squeezing my thumb in my fist as hard as I could, I drove to the emergency room.<br />
<br />
On the way to the hospital it dawned on me that this was one of the few times in my life I had gone to the ER with an easily recognized injury. Over the course of my life I have been to the ER several hundred times, but most of the time it was for an internal hemorrhage and did not involve large amounts of visible blood and gore. This time I was bleeding the way everyone always imagines a hemophiliac bleeds.<br />
<br />
Since at that time I didn't self infuse, and hemorrhages always start without an appointment, I got to know the ER nurses fairly well. In the five years we had lived in Arizona I had been to this ER about twenty times, and the routine was always the same. I'd go up to the triage desk and tell the nurse I had hemophilia b and was bleeding in my hip or knee or kidney or whatever; and they would take me right back to a treatment room. I never really looked like anything was wrong.<br />
<br />
I got to the ER and walked up to the triage desk. The nurse looked up, and said "Ooo, I bet you're going to need some stitches." I said "Yeah, and the really fun part is: I have hemophilia b." She said something like, "Wow, it just gets better and better," and took my blood pressure and temperature. I told her the names of my primary physician and hematologist, insurance company, and other vital statistics, and then she said, "Well, take a seat in the waiting room, and they'll call you in a few minutes."<br />
<br />
I was stunned. When I went in looking like a mid-level management type late for an appointment I would be taken right in. This time, when I looked like a minor character in some slasher movie, I had to wait.<br />
<br />
I took my seat in the waiting room about midway between the television blaring some kid's show and the television blaring something in Spanish, and let my thumb drip into a waste basket for forty-five minutes.<br />
<br />
Eventually I got some stitches, and a dose of factor. By the time I got home it was almost 9:00pm. I was starving, had a huge headache, and my thumb was waking up from the Novocain. I had a sandwich, took a pain pill and went to bed.<br />
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When I got up the next morning my thumb hurt like hell, and the only room I had managed to actually clean now looked like an abattoir. I cleaned the bathroom again. By the time I was done I was in a fairly sour mood.<br />
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The vacuum was still in the living room. I still needed to vacuum the place, but I was damned if I would use that thing. I grabbed it and the hose, took them out and threw them in the dumpster. Then I went to Sears.<br />
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I actually had to wait a few minutes for Sears to open. It was, after all, Sunday. As soon as the doors were unlocked I went straight to the aisle with vacuum cleaners. As I stomped up and down the aisle looking at the various models a young woman approached me.<br />
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"Um, Sir? Is there something I can help you with?"<br />
<br />
"Yeah. How much is this one?"<br />
<br />
She told me the price, and I noticed she seemed extremely nervous.<br />
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"I'll take it."<br />
<br />
We went over to a counter and I paid for the vacuum; and I realized that she had been very careful to always keep a counter, or something else very large, between us. I wondered what was wrong with her, and then went to product pick-up area to get my vacuum.<br />
<br />
When I got home I had to go to the bathroom. As I was washing my hand I looked in the mirror. For some reason I had grabbed the same shirt and shorts from the day before. I looked like I had been butchering livestock barehanded. No wonder the clerk was a little skittish. Good thing I hadn't asked for a wet-vac.gbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14595626710253429721noreply@blogger.com0