Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach California is my second home. This past ten months I have spent six weeks time there. I have come to knowc the place very well. It is a multi-story facility with two wings each having eight floors or wards. I have spent time in at least five overv the last two years. Each is like it's own neigborhood with it's own flavor. This time I got to see floor eight. It is a dismal place and it explains why Michael Fox's ad carries our Democratic message so well.
I was diagnosed with Type II diabetes two years ago. At the same time I developed chronic pancreatitis as well. No doctor has been able to tell me which brought on the other. By now it really doesn't matter. Since that time I have been hospitalized at least eight times. Always admitted through the emergency room the floor I get assigned to is a matter of chance. Which ever floor has an empty bed is my home for a week. Once that was the maternity floor. At least that was a happy place to be.
This time I was sent to the eighth floor. That was a new one to me. When I was rolled in I immediately noticed all the signs on the doors of the patients rooms. They were all signs warning about infection risk. All visitors had to suit up to avoid infecting the residents who were fighting complications. This ward smelled different than all the other floors I had seen. This one smelled like death and corruption. I later was informed this was the terminal cancer ward.
The mood here was different as well. It reeked of despair. Meals were brought to patients like none I had ever seen. There was ice cream and pudding. I saw trays that had nothing but sweets on them. I hoped I got lucky and got someones tray instead of my strictly controlled one. I asked the nurse why and she basically said because for many here it no longer mattered what they ate. Just that they ate something was a victory.
After several days my veins were fully mined and scared. The RN's were having trouble putting in new IV's. I was losing the ones they were able to get in. They all told me I was a "hard stick." I felt like crying. I was so tired of seeing that IV cart come around. I was tired of being bled and poked and I wanted to scream out in pain. And then I saw Michael. Not the angel, though he might as well have been to me at the time. I got to see a news segment taliking about Michael J. Fox's tem-cell research ad in Missouri. I was so immediately brought away from my room and reached a place where all I knew was someone who had put up with more pain than I was not giving up. Indeed they were fighting forward. I was ashamed I was not doing anything other than laying in my hospital bed surrounded by the people who were dying incrementally and all I could do was feel sorry for myself.
I dedcided to do something. I had brought a copy of Ricks "Fiasco" with me to re-read. I noticed the pretty phelbotomist was looking at the book with unusual interest. She asked me what it was about and so I launched into a explanation of how truly immoral and incompetent the Bush administration had been in championing and prosecuting a war that was unnecessary. She told me she had left Iran during their revolution and was amazed at how ignorant Americans were of the Middle East. She also told me that after two tries she could not find a good vein to draw from and asked if She could slice a finger and draw that way. She said it would hurt a little. I told I could take it. She smiled and said I was brave. I didn't feel brave, but I did feel like getting off the eighth floor someday. While she did milked the blood from my finger I made the sales pitch. I told her about Michael. I told her it was important to vote Democratic this time as it could be the difference between war and peace with her home country. By the time she was done she agreed.
I soon noticed that the nurses may give the same care to all the patients, but they did seem to respect the ones who held up as best they could. The ones who may have suffered, not necessarily in stoic silence, but with a dignity that said; "I will take as much as I can and then reach down once more to hold on again." I chatted up all the nurses and assistants. Told them all about Michael and how brave he was to fight for a cause that would as likely not help him at all. And how Ruch Limbaugh mocked him and accussed him of being a charlatan. They were all disgusted. I felt a little bit better each time. I was doing something.
On the Eighth Floor very few walk. They can't. They do well to sit up in bed. But there was older gentleman down the hall from me. Typical guy from around here; older, mid-fifties, well groomed, tall, silver haired golfer type. Reeked of the active Southern California easy life. This guy tried to walk, but needed help. The staff tried to help, but were often very busy. The older gentleman always said hello on our cruises around the nurses station and called out to me from his room when I passed by. That day I offered to help him and he accepted. We talked about our problems and why we were there. His condition was poor and so was the prognosis. He would leave the hospital, but it was certain he would be back somtime. We talked about Newport. He was surprised that I was a Democrat. I told him why. Why it mattered that health-care was available to all regardless of station in life. Why the enviroment was important as a preventative to getting ill in the first place. Why a living wage was important to being able to keep a population not only healthy in body, but spirit and mind as well. He told me that he saw my point, but always thought the Democrats were weak.
I told him about Michael. I told him that someone who is weak curls up and gives up. They don't show their illness hoping for pity, but rather to elicit help for those to come who will benefit. I put it to him that it may too late for himself and I, but not for his grandkids. That we owed it to them to try every approach to health regardless of what the party line was. I reminded him that like the the heirs in the tower when the fall is all that is left it matters a great deal how we fall. I think I made another convert.
I got discharged from the Eighth Foor yesterday after spending seven days there. I said goodbye to all the staff on duty at the time. They were glad to see me go. I said goodbye to the patients I had gotten to know. They were glad to see me go too. I hope if for just a moment I got a few to think differently about what we do here on this mortal coil. Why it matters how we conduct ourselves and why bravery and helping others is a Democratic value that outlasts us all.