the stroke, moved slowly, and he couldn’t coordinate it well enough to take the pills himself. Instead he obediently opened his mouth to be fed like a bird.
What a different scene from the one I’d grown used to. For twenty years, he had stood at the kitchen counter each morning shaking a white plastic jar of mixed pills until the ones he wanted agitated to the top, where he could grab them. The snapping-clatter had reminded me of baseball trading cards flapping against the spokes of a bicycle wheel—a cheerful sound from my childhood. He had studied up on his medications, whose complex schedule he knew by heart. Keeping track of changing doses, he’d split tiny pills with a sharp knife and a steady hand. Cursing and growling at the labyrinth of the automated dial system, he’d phoned in refills, consulted pharmacists and cardiologists with aplomb. While I’d stayed on the sidelines, dispensing love and trying to render useful opinions, he’d steered his own medical life—not just ably but with fascination about the science. He loved knowing that he was taking blood pressure medicine derived from bothrops , a venomous pit viper of Central America, and that if the snake bites you it can cause a stroke, but its venom used judiciously can help prevent a stroke.
A nurse tipped in one small spoonful after another, and Paul twisted his face as each hit his taste buds and lingered in his mouth for a few seconds until he could swallow. Nonetheless, he took his pills stoically, just as he did his insulin shots, which he received in a pinch of skin on his upper back, so he wouldn’t have to watch the needle enter. He’d never needed insulin before, and just in case I’d ever have to administer it at home, a nurse gave me lessons. The first time I jabbed Paul I handled the needle like a dart and he cried out in pain. His eyes snarled: Don’t THROW it! Paul wasn’t coordinated enough to inject himself, and I dreaded the thought of stabbing him every day. Not because I didn’t think I’d get used to the syringes, or even the ritual of filling them, tapping away oxygen bubbles, and piercing the skin. If I misfilled a syringe and injected him with too much insulin, I could kill him. The responsibility scared me. One small slip by me could have huge consequences.
Or one big slip by him. Paul was one of the patients on the floor labeled as FALL RISK . Woefully confused, balance off-kilter, he lurched when he moved, and his vision was skewed—all of which added danger. fall risk earned him a notice on his door, a note in his chart, and the alarm on a string, with one end clipped to his hospital gown in a hard-to-reach spot. He was supposed to ring for an aide when he got up. But he didn’t remember that instruction, and probably hadn’t understood it to begin with. Moments stretched like aluminum taffy when he needed to use the toilet or wondered why he was imprisoned far from home. If he didn’t wait for help, and plunged ahead on his own, an alarm would ring as he jerked the cord free. Patient on the loose! the bell pinged in the nurses’ station. Then a nurse or aide would come running to see if he’d hurt himself or needed help with the toilet. But if no one was at the station, and I wasn’t in his room, the bell might not be answered right away.
Fixated on the idea of home, Paul began trying to escape. With his hospital gown flapping open in the back, face tufted and bloody from clumsy attempts to shave, hair a short cyclone, he waited until the coast seemed clear, then took wing down the hallway, shambling and weaving at speed, subversively heading for the exit, without knowing exactly where that might be. Once, like a deluded Magellan, he circumnavigated the floor, almost making it to the elevators before a nurse and an aide captured him and led him trumpeting angrily back to bed. Several days later, despite his lack of coordination, he managed to wiggle out of his hospital gown without setting off the alarm ,
What a different scene from the one I’d grown used to. For twenty years, he had stood at the kitchen counter each morning shaking a white plastic jar of mixed pills until the ones he wanted agitated to the top, where he could grab them. The snapping-clatter had reminded me of baseball trading cards flapping against the spokes of a bicycle wheel—a cheerful sound from my childhood. He had studied up on his medications, whose complex schedule he knew by heart. Keeping track of changing doses, he’d split tiny pills with a sharp knife and a steady hand. Cursing and growling at the labyrinth of the automated dial system, he’d phoned in refills, consulted pharmacists and cardiologists with aplomb. While I’d stayed on the sidelines, dispensing love and trying to render useful opinions, he’d steered his own medical life—not just ably but with fascination about the science. He loved knowing that he was taking blood pressure medicine derived from bothrops , a venomous pit viper of Central America, and that if the snake bites you it can cause a stroke, but its venom used judiciously can help prevent a stroke.
A nurse tipped in one small spoonful after another, and Paul twisted his face as each hit his taste buds and lingered in his mouth for a few seconds until he could swallow. Nonetheless, he took his pills stoically, just as he did his insulin shots, which he received in a pinch of skin on his upper back, so he wouldn’t have to watch the needle enter. He’d never needed insulin before, and just in case I’d ever have to administer it at home, a nurse gave me lessons. The first time I jabbed Paul I handled the needle like a dart and he cried out in pain. His eyes snarled: Don’t THROW it! Paul wasn’t coordinated enough to inject himself, and I dreaded the thought of stabbing him every day. Not because I didn’t think I’d get used to the syringes, or even the ritual of filling them, tapping away oxygen bubbles, and piercing the skin. If I misfilled a syringe and injected him with too much insulin, I could kill him. The responsibility scared me. One small slip by me could have huge consequences.
Or one big slip by him. Paul was one of the patients on the floor labeled as FALL RISK . Woefully confused, balance off-kilter, he lurched when he moved, and his vision was skewed—all of which added danger. fall risk earned him a notice on his door, a note in his chart, and the alarm on a string, with one end clipped to his hospital gown in a hard-to-reach spot. He was supposed to ring for an aide when he got up. But he didn’t remember that instruction, and probably hadn’t understood it to begin with. Moments stretched like aluminum taffy when he needed to use the toilet or wondered why he was imprisoned far from home. If he didn’t wait for help, and plunged ahead on his own, an alarm would ring as he jerked the cord free. Patient on the loose! the bell pinged in the nurses’ station. Then a nurse or aide would come running to see if he’d hurt himself or needed help with the toilet. But if no one was at the station, and I wasn’t in his room, the bell might not be answered right away.
Fixated on the idea of home, Paul began trying to escape. With his hospital gown flapping open in the back, face tufted and bloody from clumsy attempts to shave, hair a short cyclone, he waited until the coast seemed clear, then took wing down the hallway, shambling and weaving at speed, subversively heading for the exit, without knowing exactly where that might be. Once, like a deluded Magellan, he circumnavigated the floor, almost making it to the elevators before a nurse and an aide captured him and led him trumpeting angrily back to bed. Several days later, despite his lack of coordination, he managed to wiggle out of his hospital gown without setting off the alarm ,
Similar Books
