You’re a freelance personal trainer. You live in Manhattan, and the majority of your clients are wealthy young women who are married to doctors, lawyers, and bankers. They’re the types who are terrified of growing old and losing their husbands to younger women.
Today, you’re off to visit a new client. When you arrive, you realize that she is completely different from your usual clients. Instead of young and perky, you see an elderly woman with a big smile. What made her seek out your services? What is she like? How do you handle it?
Give us as much or as little as you want in response to this writing prompt. Feel free to leave your comments below, or to post your story to a blog and let us know where to find it.
photo credit: kalidoskopika
Ralph Says:
Hospital Action: What’s In A Name?
At approximately 2am, after I had struggled with chest pains for over two hours, Joie called 911. The paramedics arrived, primed and prepared to “save lives.” They followed the usual routine of oxygen, BP, EKG, and questioning. I was transported over a bumpy road by ambulance to a local hospital. After undergoing the necessary process used for “heart” patients and while lying on a familiar hard ER bed for over two hours, I thought “here we go again.” Finally, I was moved to Telemetry on the second floor where they examined, analyzed, and poked. I have endured life there on numerous occasions wearing a flimsy gown designed to humiliate all who don these disgusting privacy busters.
Following tests that analyzed the vials of my blood that had been drawn from weary arm veins—they had been jabbed and wounded so many times in the last few years—it was revealed that I needed a chest CAT scan. A wheelchair pilot entered my room and loaded me, blankets and all, into their stock issue big-wheeler. Down the halls and into the elevators we flew at a snail’s pace. My pilot visited with all other pilots we met and gave little proof that I was anything special. After arriving at the CAT scan lab I was parked in the hall outside the entry door like a cab pulling up to the curb waiting for action.
When the queue dwindled down to only one sufferer left before me, I knew the great chest revealing show was about to begin. Then it was my turn. After being wheeled into the frigid gray room, I was immediately greeted by a technician that I recognized from years before. We spoke briefly, acknowledging former scan action in this room. The tech assisted me as I climbed onto the narrow, cold, steel transporting slab—the table that would mobilize my body into a machine that reminded me of a huge cave entrance. It was whirring and making sounds like a race car idling in preparation for a lap around the oval, and was spinning slowly with little lights blinking to prompt us that it was ready to invade my body with rays that reveal secrets of my inner being. Into the cave I went. The cave voice talked to me: “Take a deep breath and hold it . . . breathe.” Meanwhile the rays were at work drawing pictures of my chest as the whirring sound grew louder and spinning increased to a rapid pace. Wow! What excitement! A dye was then injected through a tube in my arm which made my body from head to waist heat up like a hotdog on the grill. All done.
Following another ho-hum trip back to my room, I settled in for the waiting game. It took very little time for a nurse to secretly reveal that the scan found blood clots in both of my lungs. She made me promise not to tell anyone that she had told me. “That’s the doctor’s job.” However, she thought it necessary for me to know because the order was “no action.” If I moved abruptly and too much it might dislodge the clots which would then possibly lead to stroke or even death. Whoa! What’s this? What would cause this?
My primary doctor came and told me the bad news and I did a good job of acting, making it appear that I hadn’t already been told. New medications were administered and cautions were issued.
Meanwhile I had a new problem. The other resident of room 206 was an 88-yr-old irascible curmudgeon who made it clear, with vociferous outbursts of objection, he wasn’t being treated right. The nurses and aides could do nothing right. A tremendous amount of foul language was trumpeted until I’m sure folks in the halls wondered what was going on.
This is where my unbelievable story begins.
With only a flimsy curtain drawn between us I was getting the full impact of his behavior. I had a decision to make. Should I ask to be moved to another room or should I stay and make the most of a very unpleasant situation? I decided to stay and test my knack for communicating.
My blood was getting very thin as a result of medications, and a large blood blister had formed at the inside bend of my left elbow, the site of one of numerous blood draws. Remember this fact; it is crucial to the unfolding turn of events.
The 88-yr-old windbag was carrying on so badly that I decided to try and rid the atmosphere the cantankerous old guy had created in the room. After all nurses and aides had left us two alone in our cubicle I asked what work he used to do. That seemed to calm him a bit and he, in a more or less normal tone of voice, began an explanation of his past career. According to him, he owned numerous warehouses throughout the USA and had been living a comfortable life in a warm retirement community. He then went on to tell me he was presently living with a daughter in the area—I immediately sympathized with a lady I never met—and that she had hired a professional landscaper to keep her property in pristine condition (my words). After revealing more about himself, he said, “It’s cold in here. Man, I’m freezing my ass off over here.” I had been instructed not to get out of bed so I suggested he ring for the nurse. She could bring him another blanket. He said “I can’t find the (blankety, blank) thing.” So I used my call button to call the nursing station and tell her my roommate was cold and would she please bring him another blanket. In no time she was in with the needed warmer and placed it over him. After a few more descriptions of his past years he again said, “Damn, you’d think they would care about us. I’m COLD!” Once again I rang for the nurse and got him another blanket. That seemed to help.
While in the middle of a sentence, he said, “I’m dizzy.” To my surprise and alarm I heard what I at first thought were the sounds of an epileptic episode. That was not the case however. The sounds I heard were what my parents used to describe as “death rattles.” After approximately 20 seconds of gurgling, gasping and stuggling to breathe, the room became as quiet as a tomb. Not ten seconds had passed before his daughter entered the room and found him unresponsive. She screamed, “Nurse, nurse . . . HELP!” She then came on my side of the curtain and said, “What happened?” as though somehow I was expected to know the details of his passing. I told her what I knew and she quickly rushed back to his side saying, “Daddy, daddy . . . wake up, wake up, DADDY. NO DADDY, WE NEED YOU!” A code was broadcast over the intercom and medical personnel descended on the room until I thought no one else could get in. What sounded like hushed whispers of “No . . . nothing. I can’t get any response,” I heard more indiscernible discussion with busy scuffling sounds of efforts to revive.
Remember earlier when I asked you to remember my blood blister? During the rescue efforts to save my roomie and without thinking, I had brought my left hand up to adjust the covers on my bed. No problem . . . until I noticed the blister had burst and blood was spurting out all over my bed clothes and beautiful hospital gown. Now normally I would have called for assistance, but with all the action in the room bent toward saving a life, how could I be so crass as to call for help for a mere spurting of my blood all over my bed. So, I held it out over my blanket and watched as the thinned blood ran freely from both sides of my arm making huge red spots where it landed. My thought process again dealt with priorities. I needed help but this was not the time to call for it. Then I thought, There are a lot of folks to help on the other side of the curtain. Perhaps I should somehow get someone over on my side. I cleared my throat and in a somewhat muffled voice, a bit embarrassed to ask, I said “ I hate to interrupt, but is there anyone who can help stop bleeding over here?” In a flash my nurse ran to my side and said, “Oh, my God!” She quickly grabbed gauze and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. It took some time but she got the job done. Tuh Duh, all is now fixed.
My breakfast had been delivered to the room before this episode began and was sitting on the bedside table getting cold. Another decision. With a corpse and grieving family on the other side of the curtain, how could I even think of eating? But again I spoke to myself, I’ve been in rooms with corpses before when I was working my way through college at the local hospital. But, what should I be expected to do? Fill my gut while others grieved? Hard decisions make life interesting. I decided to eat. After all, the curtain was drawn and noone would know. And, I was very hungry.
Just as I finished wiping my mouth after a decent breakfast I received a visitor. Who in the world would be visiting now? It was the resident chaplain. I suppose standard procedure was for him to visit roommates and help them through such a traumatic experience. He read from the Bible and prayed, making every effort to soothe what he thought would be overwhelming emotions. I showed no signs of “losing it” and he looked somewhat surprised. As a believer, I find comfort in going to the Great Comforter during such times. My greatest emotion was doubting the sainthood of the man I heard go to meet his Maker.
Within thirty minutes the nurse’s aide came in and announced they would be moving me to another room.
Remember when I told you I was not supposed to move unnecessarily? When they came to assist me and prepare for making the journey to another room, I walked carefully to the door leading to the hall. There stood a wheelchair that I supposed they would sit me in and off we would go. Not! They said to walk very slowly, that my new room was just two doors down. So I shuffled off in my sock feet to my new destination. When we arrived I noticed it was one of those semi-private rooms and thought, how nice . . . they treat us very well under these circumstances.
For those who do not already know, my parents somehow assumed that naming their second son with a feminine first name would somehow work out OK. Not! I had, since leaving their tutelage, used V. Ralph Knepper as my official signature and everything worked well. No problems were encountered beyond some folks’ curiosity. Until . . . to receive Medicare benefits, I had to give my full name on the application blank. Being naive and assuming I would be required to be absolutely truthful or be in danger of losing benefits, I put all three names in their proper order . . . not the V. Ralph Knepper I had been using for years. With a first name which understandably was often mistaken for a female, I have run into many hurdles and mistakes on the part of care-givers.
As I started to enter my new semi-private room I glanced to the left in order to size up my new roomie. You are probably ahead of me here. My new roomie was to be an aged, wrinkled, washed out female lying unconscious in her bed, panting to stay alive.
I stepped back and said, “Are you trying to fix me up?” They all apologized, explaining what probably had happened and, since I was lighthearted about it all, they snickered and we enjoyed the escapade. The announcement was made that a room at the end of the hall was available. Now, at this point of excitement, everyone had forgotten that I should have very limited movement. We started the trek to another room at the end of the hall and a nurse yelled out, “Not that end of the hall, the other end.” So, again we shuffled off to find a place to rest my weary bones. I had quite an entourage by this time and everyone was laughing as I said, “For those who remember WWII, I ask ‘Is this trip necessary?’” Once we had arrived at my new “digs” we stood outside while I explained to my audience that Billy Graham had a co-worker named George Beverly Shea and used to go by Bev Shea, so I didn’t feel so bad about my female handle. With the atmosphere so light and fun, one of the nurses leaned over and said, “Well, now that you have us so relaxed, I’ll tell you.” And with a giggle she said, “There was a pap smear scheduled for you today.”
Posted on December 18th, 2010 at 3:08 am
jbmoss Says:
I enjoyed this story – the writing style kept me reading, and when I got to the end, I wondered – is the picture one of V. Ralph Knepper? I’m still laughing at my own joke…
Posted on May 8th, 2011 at 10:49 am