Part 11 & 12

Part 11 1-800-BAD DRUG and who is steering this ship?


I see a TV ad about the drug Paxil contributing to birth complications. The announcer screams “call 1-800-BAD DRUG if you have taken this drug!” Imagine, if someone is freaked out by this one drug, what about all the stuff they are pumping into me? The program then continues, people struggling to afford their new home in the Bahamas with the gorgeous room with a view. Ah, the nice dilemmas of life…now I must create my own room with a view right here. I have so much less to work with.

A man joked with one of the nurses, Leanne, as she was changing his IV, that she was the bartender. Not missing a beat, Anna the charge nurse, seated behind the nurses’ station with her back to us, corrected him, saying “I’m the bartender. She’s the waitress”. I am getting to know the staff now after a few days of being here. Anna and Abe are both veterans. But Leanne and Christy, an attractive former receptionist who went back to school for her RN degree, have only worked in this facility for one year. Great, I’m being cared for in part by interns. And trust me, now is the time for professionals only. A lady beside me remarks, “what we won’t do to stay alive”. A discussion ensues about health care. I am unsettled by Anna’s comment “a lot of doctors and nurses are going to retire because they will not do substandard care. It all depends upon what Obama does”. The conversation morphs into a discussion of job layoffs, state taxes… and life goes on. Abe displays to a patient the last available portable chemo pack for overnight therapy – it is pink. Mary is a patient sitting next to me. She tells me that she had an inherited condition that had been misdiagnosed for seven years and that has left her with little time to live. She states that when she walks her feet hurt and she feels like she walks on glass, and that she also suffers from chronic fatigue. Mary was referred to Dr. Bu-, who diagnosed her malady, and although she appeared to be depressed, his face lit up as he exclaimed, “why aren’t you celebrating? I’m going to get you cured!” Mary now sings his praises (“he’s wonderful…he saved my life”). But she worries that if some of the new proposed health care plans are implemented that Dr. Bu- and his physician brother will quit working. Mary laments, “he has to stay to keep me alive”.

I continue to ask the nurse each time if the bag they bring me is mine…I overhear, “he just lost 65 pounds”…a patient walks out, waiving, and saying “bye, see you tomorrow”…my wife is checking emails to see who is praying for me”…



Part 12 Bulletproof youth/the other side of the window


It’s tough watching young people walk by outside. Two attractive young ladies are passing by, one smoking. Their eyes don’t gaze into this place. They have other concerns. Who said what about whom at work. Will that guy at the office ask me out. When you are young, though, no physical ailments will touch you. Our maladies inside this room don’t exist to them. I have to push back the remembrances of when I was that age and on that side of the window. It’s not easy being here today, in this place. I don’t belong here. Nobody belongs here. But that doesn’t change anything. I am no longer bulletproof.