CHAPTER 22

While the diversion caused by this unfortunate may have clouded our minds for a while it could not divert us from our main course; the education of the American public to the crying need for a program of research in spinal cord regeneration. Right about then the newspaper headlines were crowded with the story of one of Bing Crosby’s sons having broken his back in an automobile accident. Paraplegia is a hell of a thing to wish upon anyone, but as we didn’t have anything to do with his injury we felt that he had been a heaven sent sacrifice, and it would be idiotic not to take advantage of it. With his father being the famous and altruistic person he had always been; enlisting his aid in our campaign to publicize our problem was going to be a first class cinch. We were positive that with a man of his caliber working in our behalf we could finally be assured of some day seeing a genuine research program started.
It was not without avid interest that we picked up the daily papers to learn of how young Crosby was progressing. The doctors have a professional gravevine, for days before the story broke in the papers Doctor Abrahamson told us to forget all about it as the boy hadn’t injured his spinal cord, and would soon be back on his feet. His words proved themselves to be true, and another golden opportunity slipped from our grasp, but anyhow it was a kool idea. There was no point in sitting around telling each other how bright our futures were going to be, so back to watching our television sets we went. Whenever a television set is subjected to the use and abuse of a large polyglot home audience there has to be some system of government to decide over which picture to watch. This usually works very well, but every now and then the majority finds itself indifferent to what is tuned in, and the final decision falls upon two paraplegics whose tastes are varied and miles apart. On one such a day the problem presented itself before a very conceited quadriplegic, and the paraplegic who had so neatly smashed the doctor’s jaw when he poked his aching kidney. The quadriplegic making the false assumption, which so many quadriplegics do that because of his greater disability his opponent wouldn’t bother him, proceeded to painfully turn the dial with his weak hand to the channel of his choice.
Just before he started to make that fatal move the paraplegic shouted to him not to, for he said that he was doing so at his own risk. Upon seeing that he was being ignored the paraplegic immediately rolled up to him and with one quick stroke blackened his eye. No one could exactly admire the paraplegic for his display of poor sportsmanship, but then again no one wanted to show much sympathy towards the quadriplegic as we all felt that he had received his just desserts. The doctors soon found out about this one-sided display of fisticuffs and raised holy cain. They decided that it would be best to turn the two of them over to the Chief of Professional Services to let him decide what their punishment should be. While we were waiting the word of this momentous decision we tried to make each other laugh by repeating the words of an elderly paraplegic by the name of Alexander. He rolled around the were as he puffed on his smelly cigar and said, “Democracy has again proven itself, for in the outcome of today’s television vote; the ayes had it.”
While these very amateurish pugilists were giving our doctors a good deal to fret about they could not escape the responsibility of administering to the other needs of the ward. There was always a constant turnover, and to make room on the third floor for incoming patients Stan of steak broiling fame found himself on the manifest and being shipped off to the second floor. He was still plagued by bedsores, and so found himself bedded down in the corner of our little sick room. I rolled in to see him one morning after learning of his arrival, and was going to wish him welcome and exchange a few words, but he was occupied washing up. When he was finished but before he could ask to have the washbasin removed I returned to his bedside. Taking five new one dollar bills from my wallet (I rarely had old ones) I said as I threw them into the basin, “Here Stan; wash this dirty money for me.” Stanley could always go along with a joke, and complied by rinsing them about in the soapy water until they were saturated.
Once satisfied that they were as clean as the day that they had left the treasury department he pressed them against the side of his bedside locker where because of their wetness they clung. One of the physical therapists then entered the room, and the sight of those bills sticking to the locker immediately caught her attention. She quickly walked over and naively said, “What are you fellows doing?” Stan was quick on the uptake, and I went along with his statement that we were making money. I then added that if she would care to place an order we would gladly produce all that she desired at a rate of three phonies for one genuine. Without bothering to examine our product she turned down our offer claiming that it was too dangerous. We then tried to increase buyer interest by announcing out loudly to all what we were doing. When we still couldn’t obtain a buyer we started cutting our price until finally we had worked ourselves down to a rate of ten
to one when we gave up in disgust. We then proceeded to advertise that it was all a joke, but even that didn’t impress the doubting Thomases.
The calendar always has Monday placed after Sunday and though I dreaded its coming I could not prevent it nor could I deny myself the trip to Presbyterian for my dilation which it brought with it. It was during one of those treatments that I met a young resident, and found my mind projecting itself backward to the days when I was a patrol leader in the Boy Scouts. I had always prided myself in having a winning patrol, and spent great lengths of time teaching my scouts everything that I knew. That day as I entered the clinic for my treatment; I though I wouldn’t have believed it if someone had warned me that it was going to happen found myself repeating the same process that I had performed when I was fifteen. Instead of teaching a tenderfoot how to be a good scout I was partaking in a lesson which was to teach him how to be a good doctor.
That was not just another resident standing in the treatment room; it was one of my long forgotten tenderfeet; only grown up. He was the only one in the room whom I addressed by his first name, for I had no intention of letting professional protocol step in the way and change my status. Though in that room I was just another guinea pig I was still not going to give in, or let him forget that I was his patrol leader.
Despite my attending to my dilations religiously I was never able to swallow any pills and capsules whole; I was forced to chew them up, and then quickly wash them down with water. No matter how bitterly they tasted I managed to take them all in save for one. The ironic part about this capsule was that I was on strict regimen, and had to swallow it four times a day. This medicine was so caustic that when I chewed it and broke the capsule it would irritate the mucous membrane of my esophagus as I tried to take it into my system. It took a great deal of arguing and persuasion to convince the doctors that this capsule’s contents were so harsh that they would cause my stricture to close down.
When I finally won my argument the doctors agreed to listen to me, and decided to order the medication in capsules that were one-third the size of the original giving me the chance to take in the necessary dosage by simply taking three small capsules in place of the large one. Once these smaller size capsules arrived from pharmacy I could do nothing but comply with the doctor’s prescription, and did so quite willingly, for there was no longer any irritation problem or fear that listening to the doctors would close my esophagus enough to cause me to slowly starve. It soon proved itself not to be too wise a thing to become complacent about all this, for pharmacy frequently made it a practice to drag its feet about placing the necessary reorders. I was still living in a bureaucratic government muddle, but it was to be many months before I was to realize how badly.
One thing that I could guarantee which those pills could do for me was to see that I was awake around midnight, for that was dosing time. In addition to giving me artificial insomnia it also presented me an excellent opportunity to meet the night nurses some of whom were quite attractive. As the many golden opportunities for a good night’s sleep had been wasted I usually compensated myself by jumping into my chair, and rolling into the nurses’ office to learn of what ungodly reason had caused these young things to be sitting up so late in a ward full of men. They may have been pretty, but whether the doctors prescribed it or not the boys all loved their sleep, and so I found myself the sole visitor to that office. The girl who intrigued me mostly was the nurse from Pennsylvania who was so loquacious that she couldn’t resist telling me of her personal life, and about all of the intimate details which were none of my business.
As she was compelled to do a month’s tour of night duty I found myself being treated to these dissertations on young married life five times a week. The tedium of night duty made her appreciate my presence, for she just couldn’t resist spelling out one gruesome but beautiful detail after another. I wasn’t even an authorized Doctor Kinsey pollster nor was I thinking of writing this book, but she persisted, and without bothering to take notes I listened. I don’t know whether it was a pertinent fact or not in causing her to let down her inhibitions to me, but she was well aware of the sexual impotency of paraplegics, for before she had finally served out her month of duty I had all but memorized every detail of her wedding night.
I learned later by listening to the latest gossip from the grapevine that she was more than friendly with many of the other boys, and so my ego again found itself being put into its place. Whereas she delighted in bringing other people into her affairs we had a male nurse on the service who was a holdover on the ward from the days before the Halloran boys arrived, and who found an extra strange delight in butting into the private affairs of the patients. He was suffering from what we called professional ego which is caused by being associated with disabled people over a prolonged period of time, and which gives the idiots a false sense of superiority because of the fact that they can walk while we can’t.
He always had an unwanted word of advice to offer everyone. We tried to overlook it and even attempted to pull the hand on leg, “oh, pardon me wrong nurse” stunt as we had to Johnny the male nurse at Halloran, but he seemed to lack the genuine sense of humor which his counterpart on Staten Island did. I did manage to receive one good day’s labor out of him when I broke my leg, and he put me to bed without my asking him to. He couldn’t help but be on the ball that day, for though I was not aware of it my face was ashen white as I was going into shock from internal bleeding. Sometimes the Veterans’ Administration can be kind, and it eventually ridded us of him by the usual government method of transfer; namely promotion.
We could have availed ourselves of his professional services one night, but being the G I type there was a very slim chance of his wandering down to the recreation hall during duty hours. We were all in our places and waiting for the lights to go out, and for the first showing to begin when from the back of the hall came the hackneyed shout, “Is there a doctor in the house?” At first no one paid any heed, for whenever a doctor is paged he is always called by name. The yelling persisted, and so the technician decided to delay the start of the movie. Upon looking back toward the origin of the sound we could see lying on the floor one of the ambulatory patients, but oh so very quiet. Realizing that there was no horse play connected with this call for aid we expected one of the half dozen or so residents who watch the shows to while away the time when he is on call to respond. Suddenly it dawned on all present that though the picture had received good reviews not one of the mighty men of medicine was there.
The recreation technician was hardened to these little disconcerting events, and promptly put in a call for the Officer of the Day. He arrived in jig time took one look at the prostrate form, and put in a call for a litter from the cardiac ward. The litter was a little late in coming taking perhaps five minutes, for by the time its crew arrived the principal in this little tale was ready for delivery to the morgue. All in all everyone thought him a quite considerate person, for he had chosen the recreation hall as his site for expiring from this world, and to the joy and relief of all those assigned to the unpleasant task of removing his inert form it was right next door to the morgue.
The recreation hall that evening may have been the site of a life and death drama; not to say anything of the people who were killed in the movie, but the next day it was turned into a beehive of activity and panorama of chaos. It was Carnival time again, for the years were quickly putting Labor Day again just around the corner. I had managed to work up a little more interest and ambition for this parade than I had for the previous one, which I had entered, and determined that I was going to bring, home the bacon. I could no longer be satisfied with crepe paper steam engines, and so I promised myself that this year I was going to produce a genuine colossus. I wasn’t interested in being statuesque; I just wanted something which was big and alive. It took a thought or two, but I finally came up with an idea which I was positive would bring home a winner. My entry was to be a complicated affair, and so I found myself being pressed for construction time.
Knowing that the charge nurse wouldn’t faint at the sight of a little dirt I shifted my workshop to my room. As the work progressed I found myself being forced to shift workshops, for I was quickly overcrowding our little living quarters. The next room was the one, which had been used for the telecast, but aside from being larger, had a few empty beds. With the beds as worktables and with the kind permission of the room’s occupants I continued my labors there with renewed vigor. Though at first they all chose to sit and heckle at my sweat for only a day’s pleasure, they soon had themselves infected with the bug, and I found myself with more helping hands than I needed. The exposed doorway presented my efforts to all one passers-by, and they too wanted to tinker a bit.
By the time that the great day had arrived I was positive that half the hospital was working for me without compensation, and I soon found myself giving directions, as an engineer would have on a major construction project. Though officially the nurses and aides were not supposed to render me any assistance they would always find time to search out the necessary supplies such as tape, paint, and rope which I needed. I was just about ready when I decided to make a final check, and horribly discovered that once completed I could never take my pride and joy out of the room, let alone onto the elevator. Suddenly I had to turn back the years and become a real engineer. I had to calculate and plan my construction so that the final assembly could be made outside of the building and in a matter of fifteen or twenty minutes.
My calculations were closer than I had wanted forcing me to take the main body of the float down the freight elevator which was in the rear of the mess hall. We found ourselves being forced to parade through the dining room when it was loaded with diners, and I can’t guarantee the effects that our float’s skeleton had on their digestion.
I thought that the chef was going to throw the knife, which he was holding in his hand as we entered with our half done monster into the sanctity of his kitchen, but he didn’t. He even offered to lend us a hand, and help lift it off the rear loading platform to the courtyard pavement. The worst was over, and I busily set my crew to work preparing for the final assembly. Before we could put the last two wings on, the principal of my presentation had to don his costume. He was a colored ambulatory who had volunteered for the job, and he readily jumped onto his assigned position on the float. We then wrapped him in red crepe paper all the way to his neck while covering his arms. We were ready to start when the parade was. There was my entry, a hot dog in a frying pan over a barbecue pit which had a crepe paper fire in it. The police department band struck up the starting note as I made my final move and erected my banner. “Ward Two C; the hottest dog in town.”
We took the ten dollar first prize for that entry hands down, but more than for the money it was for the category which I coveted mostly: originality. Stanley of steak broiling and money manufacturing fame came up to me a few days after that, and well aware of how beautifully I had made out in the Labor Day competition said, “Since you’re the all-fired creative genius around here; you’re just the one for me to bring my problems to.” Snapping back with an attempted dig in mind, I retorted, “What could you be doing which could be so all important as to require my attention?” I failed to daze him, and he continued, “You know those black and white saddle shoes Bob Amole used to wear when he went into the latrine to take his enemas?” “Certainly,” I replied, “How could I ever forget what an idiotic picture he made sitting there with nothing over him but those shoes upon his feet.” Stan continued, “Well he may have had two college degrees, but that doesn’t say much for his memory. The jerk took his discharge while forgetting to take his brogans with him.” I thought a bit and then added, “How do you know he didn’t leave them here purposely giving himself nothing to take with him to remind himself of this place. Those shoes must certainly have enough latrine odors on them to clean out any room he would care to wear them into.”
Stan was not to be denied that day, and he pressed his point. “Let’s mail them to him.” This made me wonder if there were any postal laws relating to such a cargo by which we could be penalized if by chance our package should come open. We struck upon a master plan, and decided to try and camouflage the shoes. We painted the saddles red and the uppers blue, and then initialed each one with either the letter “L” or “R,” so that Bob would know what shoe to put on which foot. It’s too bad protocol prohibits my writing here the words that he had for us in the letter we received from him after the mailman brought him our little bundle of joy.
Speaking of joy the Chief Nurse’s office on the first floor most likely didn’t realize what it was doing, for shortly after that we found ourselves being presented with two young and comely nurses. We had pretty nurses before, but the thought of two such creatures being assigned to our ward at the same time was more than our love-hungry metabolisms could take. It was fun to sit in that drab corridor to think, speculate, and let our imaginations run wild, but some of us thought too much, and that had the adverse effect of making us sober up. Girls enter their nursing careers soft and lovely, but how long is it before they can’t help but callous mentally. I’d say it was until their schoolgirl thoughts about their profession left them, and they sobered up to reality.
There is one thing that I’ve always admired about the medical profession. It sets its standards high, and gives its trainees a rigorous schooling program which is supposed to instill within them a decorum that they should carry with them throughout their careers. What is true in theory is not always fact for practice, and it is with the Veteran’s Administration’s doctors that I learned of defections from this high creed. It can be commonly seen every time we see one of them as the slang expression goes, “goof off,” but that is one of the failings which is always found in every large organization and more so in the American government, so we look aside and grin and bear it. We turn the other cheek when it doesn’t affect us personally, but we should quickly remember that short but very important word given to each American citizen by the constitution, “redress.”
The great white father had asked me to obtain a form from my doctors so that he could complete a little chore which I had requested of him. I asked the ward physician about it, and he smilingly agreed saying, “I will do it the first chance I have.” I thought no more of it until several weeks later when I received a scorching letter from my friend in which he gave me hell for not taking care of my end of the bargain. I caught the doctor by the arm outside of his office, and demanded to know what he had done about the letter. Apologetically he told me that Doctor Weiss wouldn’t let him write it. I caustically replied, “I’m going to teach your boss that sneaky bastards should know better than work for the government, and that you should have had the decency to tell me of that rat’s action.”
That night I called Washington and relayed what had happened. The following day at a little afternoon Doctor Weiss called me into his office, and with a smile that was as phony as a three dollar bill said “Joe, you know if there is anything that you ever want or need you only have to ask me. Now what kind of letter do you want me to write?” I returned his false smile with a genuine one, for it was obvious to me that the firm hand of my dear friend in the nation’s capital had reached in to break the stranglehold that this bureaucrat had attempted to force on me. It was more than just a pleasure to put these little kingpins back in their place; it was a terrible necessity created by the fact that our very survival depended on our having conscientious doctors treat us.
As we could never permit ourselves the liberty of overlooking the laxness or indifference of our doctors or nurses towards our care we could no more permit one of our number to pile flagrant and unwarranted abuse on one of them. As each wheelchair individual every once in awhile is found in a position where he believes that he is right and that every one else is wrong it is in all fairness hard to determine whether he is or not But in the conflict where it is the paralyzed world against the healthy walking segment of creation we let our nationalistic spirits guide us, and side with our beaten up downtrodden brethren.
This was the expected pattern until the quadriplegic who had been given hell by Doctor Abrahamson soon after his admission decided to set the standards for our nurses. He was in an unwarranted hurry to have his dressing done, so when the aide told him the nurse was busy in her office and he would have to wait he shouted, “Why don’t they get rid of that old bitch, and put some young people in here? She can’t get the work done on time.” Those were big words for a helpless non-service connected quadriplegic, and besides he was but a few years her junior. It took but a few minutes of his ill-spoken words to reach everyone’s ears, and but for the immediate intervention on his behalf by the person about whom he spoke he would have found himself well decorated with bruises and scars from the rest of us who wished to give him his very needed lesson. He had picked on the sweetheart of the ward, and though he was too dumb to appreciate it, she was his sweetheart also.
The problem of finding standards for patients to guide themselves by could vary from ward to ward as night does from day with every once in awhile the two running into each other through a chance encounter. I was sitting next to the phone booth looking for a number when I felt somebody tapping me on my back. Thinking it was one of the boys who had playfully done it as he rolled by on his way from the mess hall I did nothing more than make a half glance backwards. There to my consternation was an ambulatory patient whom I had never seen before. A little confused I said, “Yes; is there anything that I can do for you?” In half broken English he spat back, “I’m tired.” Thinking to myself, “Now what could have sent this joker to me,” I continued to glare at him with a fixed stare. He then went on, “well; can’t you do something; I’m tired.” “What am I supposed to do; perform a miracle or give you a pep pill?” “Of course not,” he shot back, “I only want you to get up and loan me your chair;” he answered in all seriousness.
Once more I started thinking to myself, “This character is actually for real, and ignorant enough to believe what he is saying is really going to happen.” I didn’t have the heart to force him to grow up quickly by giving him a lecture on what he would remain happier by remaining ignorant of, and so I decided to follow the path of least resistance. I called for an orderly to bring him a chair. He was comical in a pathetic way as he tried to push his new medium, but I wasn’t the one to set him right. He had his lesson, and without another word jumped out of the chair and briskly continued on his original path. It was then that I regretted not having offered to let him sit in my lap when he first decided to burden me with his problem, which he believed to be a more serious one than mine.
Though his type of jackass was also a pain in the arse it could be considered when there was nothing better around and that was frequently a form of diversion. I suppose I could have stretched a point, and considered if I wanted to forget the pain that came with a trip to Presbyterian a form of entertainment. The brains who made the visit to Columbia a possibility was an elderly retired gentleman by the name of Doctor Crump who had invented the life saving instruments which were used on me there. Though he had retired from active practice he was still dedicated to his chosen profession, and made it a point to attend as many of those clinic sessions as possible.
One day as I sat there waiting to enter the chamber of tortures he walked up to me and said, “Go into my office; I want to have words with you.” As he said nothing about giving me a dilation I thought no more of it, and promptly complied with his masterful request. Once inside he closed the door, sat down, looked at me sternly and said, “You have been disobeying your doctor’s orders.” Before I could ask what orders he quickly added, “You were told when you first came here that you were supposed to drink bicarbonate of soda periodically during the day and before retiring at night to keep the food poisonings from irritating your esophagus, but you haven’t.” “Guilty,” I replied. “It’s a big job to have anything done in the Bronx as they don’t exactly take my word for medicinal orders up there. May I suggest that you put it on a prescription blank.” He promptly did as asked, and as he handed it to me said in all seriousness, “Give this to those people, and let me know if they fail to carry it out. I always prided myself in having excellent results with my patients responding well to my treatments. I don’t intend to let you spoil my unblemished record.”
I should have done more than thank the good doctor for what he prescribed that day, for not only were his forty years of experience with my sort of case helping my esophagus; he had given me another reason to roll up to the treatment room for my medicine. That was an excellent excuse to make conversation with the latest young head on the service. She had the map of Ireland all over her face, and a very colorful map it was. After speaking to her for awhile I learned that she was only filling in for a few months, and so there was very little sense to spreading the word about of our having a new young nurse on the ward for when her day to leave came the boys would have all given me hell for falsely building up their hopes.
The next night when I again returned to the treatment room she was still to my pleasant surprise there, and with the ice already broken conversation came easily. We talked about all the unimportant things that go into everyday conversation when I struck upon a sore spot by mentioning how highly I thought of one of the nurses on her original service. She turned to me with a murderous look in her eyes, and as she sternly pointed her right forefinger at me she said, “The trouble with you Joe is that you have too much respect for women. You’re the kind of male who puts them on pedestals.” She caught me off balance with her unladylike remark, and as I slowly eased my chair backwards out of the room in case she decided to throw something I said, “I’ll bet you’re just the one to educate me to the facts of life; aren’t you?” The throwing never did materialize, but she didn’t return again to the ward for my second lesson about women. The word soon came down to me that she had enlisted in the Air Force where I don’t know if she continued her lessons about women, but I’m certain that she learned a great deal about men.
We considered it quite a sacrifice to lose our young attractive nurses to the services, but Uncle Sam wouldn’t let it go at that, for we soon found ourselves in our own passive way doing as the healthy civilians our part in the defense effort. Though they very rarely make the headlines hospitals are an integral part of any war effort, and so in keeping with this line of thought we found ourselves going through the paces of defense drills. The patient’s reactions to this very necessary thing were just as bad as the outside world’s, and they treated it with the same indifference.
As there was no officer of the law present to enforce every one of these drills many abuses and infractions followed. Even when all went well the situation usually invited a caustic remark from one of the fellows such as, “When are they going to stop these farces? It’s obvious what is going to happen when that air raid sounds for real. Everybody with healthy legs is going to run like hell for his life, and the rest of us will be left here to catch a bomb or starve to death.” Another would then chime in and say, “Don’t be such a Calamity Jane. Look at it from the bright side. Maybe the Russians will make a direct hit on this place, and all our worries and pains will forever be over.”
With that panacea to allay our fears we returned to concentrate on the brighter side of our boring lives, and so the search for sport again had to be undertaken. Things wherever we looked just didn’t seem to be right. Monotony was in power with the doctors not helping any by deciding that it was the opportune moment to present us with the latest set of rules and regulations which had been sent up from the main office. Somewhere in the hospital; and his exact location is a good question a patient had fallen asleep while smoking, but not to say anything of the serious burns which he had inflicted upon himself had damaged a Veteran’s Administration’s mattress. If he wanted to ruin his health with fire that was his own business, but destroying U.S. Government property was a serious misdemeanor. The manager was going to make certain that we all heard of it, and so we were assembled so that the doctor could drone out to us in his ugly monotone of a voice these latest words of wisdom.
From that day forward unsupervised smoking was prohibited in bed. Though we had absolutely nothing to do with the origin of this ruling it affected us bitterly, for to those of us who smoked being in bed for a month or two without a drag to kill the boredom was torture indeed. Some of the doctors were sympathetic towards the boys because of the harshness of the edict, and in an effort to ease the burden prescribed occupational therapy for those who could move their arms enough to partake in it. The doctors may have had years and years of schooling, but the therapist was named Joe Kramer, and no matter now you spell it Joe is a boy’s name. It was then that I decided to do the doctors one better. I went to Times Square and found a Penny Arcade, which had a printing press, which made up false headlines to order. For one dollar I had three copies printed up which I then passed around to the boys when I returned. My dollar investment in my buddies’ morale read as follows: “Pyromen works, paraplegia cured, paraplegics run amuck, no virgins left in New York City.”
There was another way to build up our morale, and though it was a bit more expensive and could not be enjoyed by the bed patients it proved to be very gratifying to those who were able to partake in it. Though procreation is a forgotten thing in the life of a paraplegic the fatherly instinct is still there, and under the guidance of a nurse by the name of Mrs. Brandon a program was undertaken to have the boys visit the local orphanages with their cars. Trips were scheduled, and the children were taken to the beaches and other resorts for a day of frolic and fun at the expense and under the organization of the paraplegics themselves. It was a treat to witness the boys as they lined up at their cars in the courtyard in preparation to jumping in, and then driving to the destination, which was going to make them fathers for a day. Getting the boys’ interest worked up so that they would finally make the move and go to the courtyard was Mrs. Brandon’s big task, but once it was accomplished there was no stopping them.
Finding the needed energy to make that initial move of getting up and going has always been a problem peculiar to paraplegics, and going to see those kids was no different. In keeping with the altruistic tradition of our nation the recipients of these treks were alternated with first the orphans of one religion being feted, the second time a second religion’s orphans, and finally on the third trip the third religion’s children were taken care of. One of the stopovers for these sessions of fun was the Joseph P. Kennedy Home in the Bronx, and today as we look back in retrospect we could kick ourselves (if we could move our legs), for not having met the founder of that home who was also the father of the martyred President of these United States.
Perhaps if he had been running the country then the little inconsistencies which plague the Veterans’ Administration’s hospital system might have disappeared though its colossus will always leave it open to abuses. To best illustrate the sort of thing that happens every day in the government and which is written off quite casually there is the story of the rubber air ring. This item of inventory along with many thousands of other such items is listed as expendable, which in the government is a very broad word. The broadness of this term makes for countless violations of common sense not to say anything of good old-fashioned dollars and cents. The cents part of the bill is no help, for it does nothing but aggravate the situation by encouraging the perpetrators who always pass it off with the words, “Don’t worry about it; the damn thing only costs a few pennies.” Their indifference to what happens to the taxpayers’ dollars is enough even to make everyone who’s too young to pay taxes boil with irate anger.
The story that one of the former charge nurses tells is certain to drive your blood pressure up quite a few points. She placed a single order to the supply officer in asking for a rubber air ring to use on a shower chair as protection for the backsides of those who used it. Delivery didn’t take long, and upon its receipt she very pleased gave the box to an orderly, and told him to blow the ring up so he could put it into service. A few minutes later he reported back and showed her that the supposedly new ring had a crack in it. She immediately phoned the supply officer, and told him that she was sending the ring back to him, so that he could ship it back to the company for a refund. To that he tersely replied, “Don’t bother; just throw it away; I’ll send you another one.”
She was good and angry that day when she told me that story; to say the least she was fit to be tied. I was no help to her, but in an effort to soften her frustration I suggested that she inform the doctors of what had happened. She quickly turned to me and said with tones of temper in her voice, “Listen, wise guy; when you’ve something to say to me make it concrete, for I’m not in the mood for any smart aleck remarks.” Not wishing to press the point I answered “Oh! Pardon me,” and rolled away. I was in a quandary about her angry remarks to me, for no matter how I tried I couldn’t find anything out of place in what I had said.
It was to be a week later when I learned what had prompted her to address me that way. I was sitting outside of my room in the corridor hoping something would pass by when to my consternation the only thing that walked up was our bald headed urologist. He stopped at the water fountain for a quick drink, but when it didn’t work he turned to me with an annoyed tone and said, “Why don’t you see that this damn thing is fixed?” Then with the air of having completed some monumental task he skipped away. Suddenly it dawned on me why the charge nurse had treated my suggestion with such belligerency. What I had said about telling her troubles to the doctors was the same as saying, “Why don’t you put your complaints in the garbage can?”
Do you remember when you were in the service and the word came down via latrine rumors and then official channels that a wheel was going to visit, and suddenly everyone’s life was turned into a nightmare. The Veterans’ Administration despite the fact that its employees are supposed to be civilians is not much different. Our then manager of the hospital, Doctor Brunner, had a knack for throwing fear into the hearts of his civil service proletarians. A few of us knew him from his days as Chief of Professional Services at Halloran, and of his feverish dislike for dust.
We took great delight in taunting the staff about this fact and had them worried. Our little effort to make the personnel sweat backfired, for in the first time since we had all known him he failed to follow precedent. In an attempt to insure his visit from going to waste I told the charge nurse to re-introduce me to him as an old friend of his from Halloran, and I would see to it that she received all the physical improvements, which she had wanted for the ward. She complied with my request, and following through to my cue after introductions I asked the manager if he would please follow me into the shower room, as I wanted to show him something. Once inside I showed him a few ideas which I had about improving the shower facilities. He said that I had come up with an excellent suggestion, and that he would send the engineers to take care of it promptly. I thanked him as he left.
Time started to pass and nothing material happened, but the following week I received a letter from him thanking me and commending me for my creative thinking. The hospital paper even carried a little credit for my efforts on its front page. Some of the boys playfully threw a dozen copies of the article into my locker. I threw all but one away, and put that into the envelope with the letter of commendation which I then placed in my drawer for future reference. The engineers came up to the ward, studied the job, made promises, and left. Before I had realized it six months had passed, and I had received nothing but promises.
It was a summer day, and six chairs were lined up at the one usable shower stall when I decided that I had enough of government red tape and procrastination. Remembering the contents of that envelope I added a note of explanation, and sent it all to my friend in Washington. Two days later one of the boys rolled into my room and said, “Joe you’d better get out there, and steer those guys straight; they’re going to work on the shower room.” It was a little hard to believe, but very true. On the bulletin board was tacked this notice. “Shower room temporarily closed for renovations.”
I couldn’t wait to make use of those updated shower facilities, for after all aside from the fact that it was a hot day making it ideal for bathing since I had been instrumental in securing their installation I felt that I had merited the first bath. I hadn’t gotten the door but partially ajar when I realized that I had been beaten to it, and by an interloper to boot. It wasn’t the type of loss that deserved becoming angry over, so I did nothing but utter a half-hearted hello as I proceeded to my damp chore. I hadn’t been at it but a few minutes when two orderlies who were new to me walked in pushing the patient’s regular wheelchair ahead of them.
I took in all that I could stand, but I could no longer resist commenting upon the obviously luxurious service that he was receiving. More than slightly irked I started to utter, “Whom do you know to rate two men to push you out of here?” Before I could spit it completely out one of the aides caught my attention by quickly placing a forefinger over his lips indicating for me to be silent while the one from his other hand pointed to his eyes. I then sadly realized why this man who was so brazenly using our shower chair was being so royally treated. He was a patient from the Neurological Ward where all complex nerve injuries were kept, and on top of being totally paralyzed from the neck down was blind in both eyes.
An odd thing then happened. It’s not that bitching to deaf-eared doctors about my throat was what could be called unusual, but on that morning one of them actually listened and went one step further by making out a consultation slip, so that I could be seen by Doctor Colson, the ear, nose, and throat specialist who was more than quite accustomed to the inside parts of my esophagus. When I presented myself to his clinic his seeing me with a dozen anxious new recruits who awaited his medical probes did no more than stir a nod from his gadget-covered head. His being dressed to kill for his profession may have cowed these novices, but I was not awed.
I was dead wrong about Doctor Colson, for after he examined me he blurted out, “Something is amiss inside your nose.” I was al1 set with a snide retort, but he added, “It has a bluish tinge. You have a subacute infection that’s showing no fever. I’ll have your doctor take smear specimens from the insides or your throat which he’ll send to the lab, so that a serum can be made up.” He then explained how before the so-called miracle drugs medical pioneers treated patients with vaccines made of samplings taken from their bodies.
The next day my ward doctor did exactly as he had been ordered. When my panacea arrived from the laboratory a new regimen of injections was undertaken. This was kept up for a few weeks when he decided to stop the treatments. I didn’t know enough of the procedure to question his action, but I was aware that germs could lie dormant for many years. I then sincerely hoped that the Jenner of my paralyzed world knew what he was up to, and decided not to let curiosity do me as it had the cat.