Direct TV

You walk through first class when making your way to your impossibly small coach seat next to the restroom. The first class passengers who boarded first are getting mimosas and free copies of The Journal while another attendant hands out hot, moist washcloths. Some have already fully reclined in their plush leather seats.

The doors close, the curtain is shut and you are left to endure the 6 hour flight between the gentleman who smells of a land you’ve never been too and foods you’ve never tasted and his wife to whom he yells at in a language you cannot understand. You offer the soul mates an opportunity to sit next to one another, but they have no idea what you are saying. This is the one flight a year they take and they are just fine having you sit in-between them. You are not offered food due to cost cutting unless you want to pay $13.50 for a pre-fab salad from TGI Fridays. Mmm mmm. Overly cold, tasteless and sure to please no one, but it is a momentary diversion from the guttural spit that has had you in the crossfire since you sat down.

In Cleveland, after the first open heart operation and the drainage tube event but before the lymph-angiogram and the second open heart surgery, I was contacted by administrators from the Clinic. It seems it had been brought to their attention that I had been writing a very public account of my experiences while under the care of the clinic. I was told that there are “…many people paying attention to my blog and if there is anything that I am or have been unhappy with I should speak directly with a “patient advocate”. The conversation lasted about 30 minutes all the while my entire family sat around amazed that it was coming to this. I was never told to stop, lord knows they couldn’t say that even though it was strongly implied. So I shared with her my frustrations about it taking an hour to get a nurse to answer the call button, the inconsistency of information from the myriad doctors I saw each day, the consistently delayed schedule which had me staying longer than most of us thought needed at times, the absurdness of the pain scale and pain maintenance techniques and then some of what I heard uttered during my stay, such as a nurse saying to a colleague: “I have such a bad cold, I shouldn’t even be here.” And I shared all of this freely and then with anger. It angered me that at least I was physically and mentally able to be heard there in the hospital, but also to share my challenges with concerned friends and family via the blog. My capacity and my public record of the occurrences, I am positive, meant that I received better care and attention than the average patient. And the anger built as I realized how many people did not have the personal capacity nor the friends or family to stand in as their guardian.

The first time I came up from ICU I had a semi private room and in the bed next to me was Mr. Patterson. I learned nothing of his ailments, his past or his hopes for the future. Mr. Patterson was 89 years old disheveled long white hair and a bushy mustache. He was disturbingly emaciated and had no visitors or calls for the 3 days we shared quarters. I thought his agony would ease once they got him settled the first day. As they transferred him to his bed he let out wails of pain and crushing despair that made no discernible words but it was plain enough to know what he was saying. And so this continued for 3 days and 3 nights. The wails would reach deep into my soul when they were loud and seep agonizingly into my head when they were low but either way their cadence continued. The nurses aides changed his bed linens each day and laughed and joked about different men they were dating and other nondescript trivialities. And all the while Mr. Patterson moaned, and they laughed.

And somewhere during that period I began to question my own humanity for all though I called the nurses on Mr. Patterson’s behalf when his pain seemed to spike, I wondered after they arrived did I call them because Mr. Patterson needed help or because I need a respite from his cries of despair?

So the blog gathered critical mass and shortly after the call from the administrators Dr. Gillinov was so kind as to offer me to move to the VIP floor which I gratefully accepted. And here in a 1200 square foot room with two refrigerators, two televisions with Direct TV and original art work on the walls I sat as “room service” was brought for meals. And then one of the cleaning ladies asked who I was because this was the same room Lebron James of the Cleveland Cavaliers stayed in the same room a week earlier because a case of Pleurisy. “Do you watch soap operas? I asked. “Oh yes, I sure do.” “Which ones?” “I really like the Young and the Restless and I also likeGeneral Hospital. I’ve been watching that one for over ten years.” “Oh well,” I said. “I’m just starting out. I’ve been on Days of our Lives a few times but they told me I’m going to be a regular." And shortly after she left, looking more shy than when she first came in. And then the smile fell from my face because Mr. Patterson couldn’t write a blog and now he didn’t have Direct TV.


~Joe

Surgery #1: 31 days post-op
Surgery #2: 17 days post-op