In the wee hours of the morning
It is 3 in the morning. The room is dark except for a sliver of light leaking in through the partially closed door. Other than the bustle of the floor nurses leaking in through the door, it is quiet in the hospital room.
Paul had his ninetieth birthday a month ago. Four months earlier he was a vibrant old man. He walked about two miles a day with a friend. An extrovert, Paul talked to everyone that he met as he wandered. He woke up one morning complaning that his right leg was not working. It hurt when he tried straightening it, and it would not move as well as it had. Shortly after waking Paul showed the classic signs of a stroke: one side of his face went slack, he could not talk and he was slurring his words, and he was very confused. We rushed him to the hospital.
A week later he went into a rehab facility. A month and a half later he finally came home. No longer could he wander about visiting his friends. He could barely maneuver with a walker. With three hours a day of physical therapy, Paul slowly regained some of what he lost, but he was wore out from the exertion.
Two weeks ago he had a TIA (transient ischemic attack - a mini-strke) during therapy. Four days in the hospital restored him to almost where he was before the TIA.
Then five days ago he fell getting out of bed. He was sore and in pain all day. A short trip to the emergency room and a battery of tests did not show any broken bones. Over the next two days Paul seemed to waver back and forth from feeling OK to not.
Yesterday we took him to his primary care physician. We used a wheel chair to get him to my car and from my car to the doctors office. Evidently maneuvering between the car and the wheelchair aggravated something. By the time the doctor saw him, he was in excruciating pain.
He was lucid and could answer all the questions posed by the doctor. He told her that his back and his leg had sharp pains. The doctor decided to have him admitted to the hospital to see if he fractured his hip or had a herniated disk.
At the hospital they gave him something to sleep. Wednesday morning he was groggy from the meds. As the day progressed he became more disoriented and started hallucinating. By the evening Paul was incohernt. At one point he was lying on his back with his arms straight up in the air, the arms moving from one side to the other. He was flying through the air like superman! All the while he was narrating his flight in great detail. He even described his landing.
When he wasn't flying, his hands were moving as if he was performing some intricate operation. He very clearly descibed what he saw. He told us of a fountain surrounded by four walls. Moments later he was trying to open the door of a truck. Then he told us of some flowers in a pot. We talked to him. He recognized me, but he kept confusing my wife, his daughter, for his wife.
Around 10pm he settled down and drifted off to sleep. With the lights off I could barely see him lying there. I settled in for the night vigil. What I had seen this evening was not something I ever wanted to see. But, someone needed to be with him. No one should be alone when they are ill and in a strange place.
He slept peacefully for an hour. I listened to his heavy, deep breaths as I sat beside the bed. Then I notice that his arms are moving around, again. He starts mumbling. He does this for hours, moving his arms, sometimes silently, sometimes mumbling.
He becomes agitated. He starts taking his hospital gown off. I pull the gown from his lose grip and he reaches for his sheet and tries ro remove it. I pull the sheet from his hands and he goes for the gown, again. All the while he is mumbling in his sleep. He refuses to settle down.
In an effort to calm him, I take one his hands in my hand. He reaches over with his other hand and clasps my hand. I stand there beside him, holding his hands. The touch of another person soothes him. He stops mumbling and I feel him relax. After a few minutes, he is quiet and I go back to my vigil.
It is now four in the morning. The floor nurses have quieted down and all I hear is Paul's deep breathing. I sit in the dark and ponder life, mine and his. A once vibrant man is approaching the end of his days. In 40 years that could be me lying in that bed. Will it have been worth it?
Related Information:
- Tally's blog
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