Sunday, February 12, 2006

Thinking Out Loud

I'm sure we're in for endless jokes about Dick Cheney joining Aaron Burr in the ranks of American Vice-Presidents Who've Shot Someone. But here's a question: Why is the man who's a heartbeat away from the presidency out hunting? The whole idea of hunting bothers me but leave that aside. Let's say it's a great, fun sport. Shouldn't the Secret Service still say, "Uh, Mr. Vice-President, we don't like you being around people with guns"? I mean, isn't there some unnecessary security risk in there? Even if everyone in the hunting party passes a rigid security clearance, the Secret Service is supposed to keep weapons away from the Veep. And if Cheney could accidentally shoot this poor guy, isn't there some danger of this poor guy accidentally shooting Cheney?

I always understood that when you run for public office of this magnitude, you agree to sacrifice a certain amount of privacy and freedom to the folks charged with protecting you. Anyone here remember Ronald Reagan claiming the reason he didn't attend church more often was because the Secret Service thought it was a security risk and asked him not to? I'm no fan of Mr. Cheney but couldn't he put off killing quail 'til he's out of office? There'll be quail then. There may not be a future for our economy but there'll be quail.

• Posted at 10:32 PM · LINK

One Reason Hospitals Are So Crowded

Dick Cheney with a gun.

• Posted at 6:34 PM · LINK

Odd Typo

It has just been pointed out to me that I titled the post before last "Sunday Morning Hotel Blogging." I thought I was typing "Sunday Morning Hospital Blogging." I don't know how my fingers made that mistake because this place is definitely not a hotel. At a hotel, they don't serve you rotten food, make you sleep in uncomfortable beds, have people screaming in the hallways in pain, or stick you with needles. Except in Vegas at the Imperial Palace.

• Posted at 12:16 PM · LINK

Sunday Afternoon Hospital Blogging

A lady in the next room went hysterical early this morning. I don't know what it was about because the nursing staff had a shift change before I could ask anyone...not that it was really any of my business, anyway. From what I could hear, it was a relentless stream of bad news that got to her. One new nugget was delivered and it was one grief too many. She began crying and screaming and taking it out on the staff here, which of course is thoroughly professional and in no way responsible for any of the woes that have befallen this poor woman. I mean, I assume she was not wailing about the stingy servings of apple juice.

She yelled and cursed and at one point, she pushed my door open and tried to come into my room, thinking (I guess) that it was some sort of exit or way out of her misery. The nurses gently steered her back to her room and kept her there until someone arrived who had her relocated. Within an hour, her room had been cleaned and someone else was wheeled in. I mentioned to one of the women who come in periodically to jab pins into me that it was a rapid turnover and she said, "I'm surprised it took an hour. They're jammed up down in Emergency and they're out of beds. People are waiting six, seven hours then getting told to go somewhere else for treatment."

I said, "That's awful. Is there some sort of epidemic going on?"

"No," she said. "It's like that most of the time." Then she stuck a needle in me and left.

• Posted at 12:07 PM · LINK

Sunday Morning Hotel Blogging

As I mentioned, being a patient in a hospital is altogether new for me. I've logged many hours in these buildings visiting friends or tending to parents. Apart from my appendectomy, this is my first time in the embarrassing gown and the uncomfortable adjustable bed.

I have a fair amount of memory of having my appendix out when I was a small lad. The event did not scare me but it scared my father, who was as compassionate and kind as any other man who was never up for sainthood. (If they gave Jews equal consideration, he'd be a shoo-in.) But he was a nervous man and the fact that he was nervous convinced me I was supposed to be. I remember that, I remember being wheeled into a big room and put to sleep and I remember waking up in a different place with the odd sensation that while closing my incision, the surgeon had absent-mindedly sewn me to the blankets and sheets.

This was, of course, a kids' wing of a hospital. There was a little playroom and as soon as I could walk, I was encouraged to go in there and play with the toys that were there, none of which interested me. That was until I found a small stash of 78 RPM records and a little parti-colored record player (remember record players?) on which to play them. They were all lame fairy tales except for one record, which was by Paul Winchell, who was already one of my five-or-so favorite people to watch on TV. On one side, he and Jerry Mahoney sang, "When You Come to the End of a Lollipop" and on the other, he and Knucklehead Smif warbled a little ditty called, "Run Little Rabbit, Run." For the next two days, until they let me go home, I played the hell out of that record. It wasn't so much that I liked the songs as that I liked the sound of Winchell. He made me feel like I was still in touch with my real world. I think the hospital may even have checked me out a bit prematurely because the nurses in that ward couldn't stand another chorus of "Run Little Rabbit, Run."

Where I am now, I'm in a private room. I have a TV with a pretty good array of channels but, alas, no TiVo. As much as I moan about the cuisine, right now if you gave me my choice of Dr. Hoggly-Woggly's ribs or the ability to pause, rewind and record shows for later viewing, I might opt for the latter. Spoiled by TiVo is what I am. Last night, I tried to watch A Fish Called Wanda on TCM but every time someone came in to take my blood pressure, check my blood sugar, check my oxygen, reinsert my I.V. needle, start a new I.V. drip, deliver the evening snack, etc., I had to turn the TV off for a few minutes and I finally gave up. I made it about as far as the scene where Kevin Kline dangles John Cleese out the window and that was it. When I get home, I'll haul out the DVD. I have watched a number of shows here I ordinarily do not watch and have been reminded why it is I never watch them. Exactly when was Bob Barker replaced with an audio-animatronic with one facial expression?

I also have my laptop here. That helps. And visitors.

I had an uncle once who wouldn't go near hospitals; not until they had to put him in them. He saw hospitals as negative places, buildings filled with pain and suffering and people with no hope. I see them as just the opposite: Places where everyone is committed to prolonging and saving lives. (Okay, have it your way: Everyone but the kitchen staff.) Somewhere on this weblog, I may have mentioned a friend who's an emergency room doctor at another hospital, the one to which I often take my mother. He's been there 20+ years and had many chances to be promoted out of the pace and messiness of the department. Which is exactly what he doesn't want. He thinks that job is what doctorin' is all about, dealing with an endless variety of real crisis situations and seeing some immediate good come out of his efforts. I lack a good 98.6% of the skills you need to be a doctor, starting with the ability to look at blood and injuries without diving for the vomitorium. The only three things I think I'd be good at would be bedside manner, taking Wednesdays off and billing. Whenever I'm around doctors and sense people going out in better shape than when they arrived, I think about how satisfying and blessed the job must be.

• Posted at 1:15 AM · LINK

February 13, 2006 • Current • February 11, 2006