NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Hank Dumpty was admitted to Prestige University Medical Center the other day. He is in a private room on the fifth floor. He tells me all rooms will soon be converted for single occupancy. Looking out of the long narrow widow, one can see over the parking lot and beyond the bordering pines to a tower block on a rise, miles away. There is little sign of the congested streets beneath the intervening wooded expanse.
“Hi Frank, what are you doing in here?”
“Helga got me in.”
“What happened?”
“I stumbled out of my truck. Told her I was sleeping.”
He points at the dressing on his right forehead.
“On the ground?”
“Well, I couldn’t get up.”
“She says I had a stroke or some dam thing and called an ambulance. The fire brigade came too. I weigh about three hundred sixty pounds. The firemen were called upon!”
“Quite a show.”
“Yeah, mosquitos were feasting on my face and arms and the crows … they were sounding off until the ambulance doors closed. After that I don’t know.”
“You mean you passed out again?”
“Sleeping Fred. I was lying down asleep!”
“Right, so what is wrong with you?”
“That is unclear.”
He shuts off the TV on the wall opposite.
“What are the docs. telling you?”
“Dr. Hope says I should be out of here Monday.”
“Great! Today is Monday.”
Hank presses a button on a control in his lap, raising the bed. Another raises the back, so he is sitting up. Now we can talk facing each other.
“It is? Well, I came in Friday.”
Hank yawns and closes his eyes for a few moments.
“…. She didn’t say which Monday!”
He rearranges some papers on the table beside him, his phone, remote control, and plastic mug of water with a plastic straw curving out of the lid.
“Have to keep track of this stuff or it will get lost and take hours to find.”
He picks up a pen and writes in a small note book.
“Okay, here’s what I got. Dr. Hope, I told you about. Dr. Death only gave me a year, and that was four and a half years ago. Now he is noncommittal. Dr. Ding-a-ling keeps scheduling more tests. None of them talk to each other!”
“Can’t you set up some coordination?”
“Helga is on it. Oh, there’s a couple of others feeding at my insurance trough, like Dr. Maybe. Maybe it’s this, maybe it’s that .…”
“Sounds like you are getting lots of attention around here.”
“Well, Nurse Porcupine is sticking me every few minutes.”
A nurse enters in a yellow paper smock with a small tray in her hands.
“Here she is again!”
The nurse smiles at us both, but looks at me, pointing out her paper garment.
“Sir, you need to put on one of these. There’s a dispenser right outside the door.”
I go out and get lost in enveloping yellow paper, which is supposed to go over your head.
“Sir, turn it around so the opening is in back.”
“Fred, that thing has arms you know.”
The billowing paper resists my arms and drives both shirtsleeves to my armpits.
“Hi Mr. Dumpty, may I take your vital signs?”
Hank sighs in mock fear, pulls his gown and sheet to his chin and hunches his massive shoulders.
“And if I say no?”
“I’ll be back later.”
“I know you will!”
“You’re going to be fine, Mr. Dumpty.”
He proffers a bare bruised arm with several plastic bracelets at the wrist and multiple dressings along its substantial length. One bracelet indicates he is in danger of falling. Another with a bar code gets the nurse’s attention and she aims her hand-held reader at it.
“I have a finite blood supply you know.”
“I know, Mr. Dumpty. Your blood pressure is stable and that means you have plenty left.”
She moves over to a computer mounted on an adjustable mast which moves on four wheels attached at the bottom.
“Can I have your name and date of birth?”
Hank scratches the oval dome of his bald head, frowning, as if he can’t remember.
“George Washington, February 22, 1722.”
She laughs.
“Is that his real birthday?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Okay, Mr. Dumpty, you know I have to check every time, okay?”
“I thought it was in that bar code.”
“You have to tell me, Mr. Dumpty.”
She stands and types. Digital devices attached to arms on the wall behind Hank’s bed wink red numbers. Their leads disappear into Hank’s gown.
“You know they pureed my pot roast last night.”
The nurse walks over to the bedside.
“You are okay for regular food, Mr. Dumpty.”
“I thought so, too.”
“Mr. Dumpty, please lift up your covers and gown so I can check the dressing on your knees.”
I look away, out the window. A crow lands on the roof outside.
She sticks his finger and gets a drop to measure blood sugar.
“Shall I go for a walk while this is going on?”
“No, Fred, you only just got here, for heaven’s sake!”
The nurse puts a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm.
“You can stay sir. I’ll be through in a couple of minutes.”
Hank introduces his nurse as the blood pressure cuff inflates.
“Fred this is Celest, my favorite vampire. Celest, this is my neighbor, Fred.”
Celest’s pretty smile shows no sanguinity.
“Mr. Dumpty, Vampires don’t just draw blood. They drink it.”
“Yeah, but from my point of view the loss is the same!”
Celest giggles, as the cuff deflates, and she removes her latex gloves.
“Mr. Dumpty, you are so funny!”
“Celest is from New Jersey, her Mom is from Laos and her Dad is from Vietnam.”
“My Dad was in the Air Force in the war.”
“Yeah, I spent some time over there myself, guarding an air base.”
“Okay, Mr. Dumpty I am all through.”
“Thank you Celest!”
She turns to me.
“Nice meeting you, sir.”
Celest tears off her yellow gown and presses it into a trash can already overflowing with paper and leaves the room.
Hank’s pen drops to the floor.
“Say, do me a favor, see if you can find that thing.”
I get up to look and yellow paper flaps around my knees.
“You have to fasten the draw strings, Fred.”
“What, draw strings?”
“Down by your left foot. Tie it up or you’ll trip and be joining me in here.”
A long narrow strand of paper tape hangs down from the yellow folds, waiting to be fastened around my waist.
“Got it.”
The pen is under his table and easily retrieved. Someone comes in steering a big cart. The cart stops with a click silencing its whining electric motor.
“Hi Mr. Dumpty. Are you ready for your chest x-ray?”
“I might be, if my friend can stay.”
The technician steps from behind her apparatus with bouncing ponytail. Her yellow paper properly tied at the waist.
“He will have to stand outside when I turn the machine on.”
She goes over to Hank with what looks like a flat cushion. He struggles to lean forward, and she pushes the cushion behind his back.
“Sorry that thing is so hard.”
She steps back to the cart.
“Sir, I want you out of the room for a minute.”
I watch from the door way as the cart is maneuvered to the foot of the bed and an arm from the device is positioned over Hank’s feet and aimed at his chest. She then walks to the door way with a small unit in her hand.
“You ready, Mr. Dumpty?”
“That’s long range arti. you got there!”
“We are going to take a picture of your lungs.”
“Yeah, zap me any time!”
“Breath in.”
Hank coughs.
“Sorry Mr. Dumpty, breath real slow okay? take your time.”
It is all over with another click.
She walks back and looks at the screen on her cart and announces success and takes the hard cushion from behind Frank’s back.
“Okay Mr. Dumpty, you are all set.”
“Great, Can’t I keep the comfy cushion?”
“No sir, that’s part of my job.”
“Well, thanks anyway … You have a hard job!”
“Have a nice day, Mr. Dumpty.”
The technician leaves with rising pitch of her whining electric cart and adds another paper smock to the over-stuffed can at the door.
Hank’s phone rings.
“Yeah! Hi … when … okay … sure … bye.”
“Helga will be here in a minute, so hang around, okay?”
I leave the chair by his bed for Helga and sit across the room from him.
Frank’s wife arrives in her usual pink denim overalls and white blouse.
She bustles in with several bags in one hand and grabs his right.
“Are they treating you right, honey?”
“Sure, this is a high-class joint.”
She explains what is in various bags and then produces some papers.
“Say hi to Fred over there.”
Helga apologizes for ignoring me and turns back to her husband.
“Okay, I have a list of some doctors, and phone numbers.”
“You need to put some nice yellow paper on.”
“I don’t have time for any more paper!”
“Okay. Aha, what’s all that telling you?”
“Your care isn’t coordinated.”
“Aha, tell me something I don’t know.”
Helga unzips one of her bags.
“Here’s your iPad, Henry.”
“Thank you, sweetie.”
“I have been asking a lot of questions but not getting many answers.”
“No, it is all in their computers. People don’t know a dam thing these days!”
Hank has untangled the iPad’s charging cord.
He looks carefully at both ends.
“Is there anywhere to plug in?”
“It is all charged up.”
“Anyway, what about all the meds?
I am on about fifty per hour, pills, capsules, solutions, and suspensions, plus drip and, oh yes, oxygen. They took that away this morning about 4:30. Just as I was dreaming of breakfast!”
“Henry stop exaggerating. This is serious!”
“Yeah, okay, okay, okay .…”
“Henry, we are going to have to put you on a diet.”
“I am already on several diets – cardiac, diabetic and starvation!”
“The dietician’s name is Loren Fettuccini. A nice girl, I met her already and she will be in to see you tomorrow.”
“I knew I wouldn’t be getting out today!”
“Who said you were?”
“Dr. Hope, she said, ‘You should be out by Monday.’ She is a looker too …. I mean a fine-looking woman.”
“Honey, gender is irrelevant. Now, I don’t remember that at all. When did she say it?”
“After examining me Friday? or Saturday, maybe? I don’t know.”
“Honey, you were admitted last Thursday evening.”
“Okay, well Dr. ding-a-ling is coming soon to pump up his fee with more tests.”
“I just found out we can get you a patient advocate to take care of the whole ball of wax.”
“An advocate! Why didn’t you say so before?”
“Because I want to hear from you what is going on.”
“How much does this advocate cost?”
“It is a service provided by the hospital, honey.”
“Well … sounds like progress. Dr. ding-a-ling and Dr. Maybe are both coming today …. There will be enough hot air and influence in here to inflate the currency.”
“HENRY!”
“Oh come on now, you know as well as I do. This is a ‘money-care’ system. The ‘medi’ is secondary to the money!”
“Maybe so, but we have to discuss your treatment!”
“Right, when did you say the pasta woman is coming?”
“Loren will be here tomorrow afternoon. Look at the calendar on your iPad.”
Hank is preoccupied with the charging cord.
“Need a safe place for this thing.”
“Henry, will you please pay attention!”
He drops the cord on his table and turns to Helga.
“Dam right I will. There is a serious conflict of interest. If they were really ‘interested,’ coordination would be happening already. The Medical, Congressional, Industrial system …”
“Calm down Henry. You are raising your blood pressure.”
Hank leans back, yawns and closes his eyes for a moment.
“We’ll see when the doctors come.”
“I want to talk to your internist as well as the advocate.”
Hank looks up past Helga’s wavy grey hair at the crow still on the roof outside.
“One thing is for sure Helga. They all have my billing address.”
