CHAPTER 25

As it was unfair to draw that description of nursing education it is also unfair to draw a completely gloomy picture of hospital life, for there are the brighter sides especially as far as the personnel are concerned. Many little things happen behind the scenes in a hospital, but it is only in motion pictures and other fiction that they are publicized. I was lying on my bunk waiting for some excitement or a small bomb to fall when I noticed a short resident pacing back and forth by my door.
He had completed about a half dozen of his marches when he stopped, poked his head into the doorway, and said, “You’re Joe Silver, aren’t you?” I looked at him for a second or two, recognized his face, but couldn’t remember his name and said, “That’s right Doc; where have you been all these years?” He went on to bring me up to date on all that he had been doing and the training he had received since I had seen him last, and then in a half halting but very unprofessional manner added, “Joe; do you remember all the nurses who worked the third floor when you were a patient there?” I thought a bit and then said, “That’s a pretty tough question Doc, but I can try. Who are you looking for?” He went on, “Do you remember that short and pretty one with the Irish face? I think that she was Catholic.” A smile quickly spread across my face, for I immediately realized why he had stopped to speak with me. He had matrimony on his mind and in his heart, and I was one of the few old-timers still around. I had suddenly been thrust into the role of playing Dan Cupid.
He was looking for his perfect mate, short as he was, and with the same religion. I unfortunately was not in a position to be of much of a help to him, for I was only able to recall her name. Though I knew nothing of her whereabouts; the mere mentioning of her name was enough to elate him, and by the time that he was ready to shake my hand and say good-bye he was grinning from ear to ear and back again. I felt kind of good that day also, for though he hadn’t been the exploding bomb I had hoped for he did for a short while make me feel needed and useful. It was too bad that I never saw him again after that meeting, for I never found out if this fairy tale romance became a reality by his finding his little Barbara and living happily ever after.
That was a real turnabout having the doctor ask the patient; instead of the usual fare of our always asking him, but though it should not have been so the answers some of the doctors gave us frequently were of no more use to us or enlightening than the one I had given to the love-hungry medico. The disappointment which comes from the doctors’ incomplete answers is to be expected, for they believe that they are doing the right thing by short-changing the amount of medical knowledge which they give us, but every once in awhile they can be tripped up on common lore, and then we begin to wonder, “Maybe they weren’t denying us all the facts because they thought it was not good for us; the dopes simply didn’t know the answers to our questions.”
We had a young Negro resident on the ward that the boys took for a good guy, for he knew now to answer their teasing with a smile. Trying to keep my conversations with him on a high plane one day I said as he made rounds with the charge nurse, “Are you going to be with the wheels when they hold their usual séance Tuesday?” I expected him to match my snide remark with one of his own when he in all sincerity said, “what’s a séance?” Thinking to myself that I had confronted a doctor whose liberal education was incomplete because of racial prejudice I asked, “What state
you from, Doc?” “Pennsylvania,” he answered, “But you haven’t told me what a séance means.” I told him all I knew about the superstitious and vulgar practice of speaking to the dead to which he remarked, “Gee you’ve got a tremendous vocabulary.” I thought to myself, “My so-called tremendous vocabulary and fifteen cents won’t even get me into the subway; there’s no ramp there for wheelchairs.”
Though it is deemed to be an absolute necessity the hocus-pocus and the mumbo-jumbo that surround the meanings of the many terms that the profession uses sometimes appear quite ridiculous. It is no wonder that the young resident never heard of the simple wore like séance, for he was forced to occupy all his thoughts learning the secret code of his medical world. It is no secret that today’s parents must have twenty thousand dollars before they can attempt to put one of their children through medical school. Even in these days of inflation the expenditure of that amount of money deserves some sort of reward, but if one’s schooling is crowded with a special brand of double talk how much of really technical training is being absorbed. Even in the medical profession there is a limited number of outstanding I. Q.’s, and since the remainder is composed of slightly better than average intelligence quotients, it makes me wonder if all the efforts are being pushed in the right direction.
Of course the profession can state strong arguments for the other side of the picture being certain to point out that the veil of secrecy created by using the long Latin terms is needed, so that the doctor may treat his patient without fear of upsetting his mental well-being, and thus jeopardize the successful completion of his treatment. Even I have to admit it is a very reasonable sounding thought, but I’ve always been irked by having to be treated by doctors who know more big words than fact. It somehow just doesn’t seem to make good sense for a doctor to put down acetyl salicylic acid when writing a patient’s prescription in his chart when he could have done as many progressive doctors do and plainly written aspirin.
One thing that the cost of medical schools and their fancy vocabulary didn’t prepare any doctor for was the eternal discipline problem which he would have to face should he decide to work for the government and have to treat paralyzed veterans. The schools most probably took time out to give him a few preliminaries about handling drunks, dirty stay-out-lates, and uncooperative people, but he had to come to Kingsbridge Hospital to receive some genuine training. It was for the joker who tried to borrow the ten without telling me his name to provide our medical men with their first real problem in police work.
He came up to the hospital shortly after that, and insisted upon being admitted. He wasn’t service connected and had few if any privileges, but the doctors would have taken him in had he a genuine complaint. He was more insistent upon being admitted than his condition merited, and so the doctors justly turned him away. The news of what he was trying to do quickly passed around the ward, but it was laughed off as just another one of his crazy antics. As a rule the patients don’t usually side with the doctors against one of their own, but knowing of his past record left no one any choice in the matter.
We had just about forgotten the whole thing when we discovered that the New York City tabloids were having a field day at our expense and reputation. In glaring headlines they printed words to this effect, “Hitchhiker in wheelchair holds up motorist.” For years we had been trying to receive front-page notices to put our plight before the public, and he had done it; only the wrong way. We received our million dollars’ worth of publicity all right, but it was going to cost much more in the time and money that we didn’t have to undo it. We did learn one thing from that headline, and that was why he was in such a hurry to check into Kingsbridge. In his conceited mind he calculated that if Willie Sutton could stay hidden in a hospital for all those years, so could he.
If he had ever managed to worm his way into the hospital he would have resumed his role as pain in the neck, but as the police to our delight were catering to all his needs we had to content ourselves with the more docile troublemakers. Sometimes they didn’t mean to be that way; they just couldn’t help themselves. It is the same problem which is faced by many a young and eager bride. After taking her vows and expecting the best on her wedding night she discovers that the groom snores. If she is desperate and irked enough she can either kick him out of bed or ask for a divorce, but with us the elimination of a snorer is not so simple, for we can bitch, but we can’t kick. Some claim that a well-placed spasm of one of our paralyzed limbs is the equivalent of a quick kick, but the problem of positioning remains.
To make the problem even worse there are still the doctors who for some strange reason frown upon fights between patients whenever they’re angry or bored. In the old days before they had too many restrictive laws it was possible for a patient to place his hands upon a piston syringe. With a little bit of ingenuity this could be used as a water cannon, and any guilty culprit who may have been snoring in a bed at a distance of twenty or thirty feet could very easily and rudely be awakened by its spray. Trouble with this method before the hospital brass confiscated the syringes was; it was too easy for the snorer to discover who the sprayer was. The yelling and cussing that followed naturally awakened everyone else in the room, but before the two principals could meet in a wheelchair duel their roommates yelled like hell for the orderlies to break them apart.
It was a shame that they took away the syringes, but as we were limited in the use of weapons we had to resort to psychological warfare. The first idea to combat these noises was simply to ask one of the night aides (we tolerated the daytime nappers who snored) to give the guilty party a quick push so that he would roll onto his unused side, and give us a respite from his cacophony. This method worked for a while, but if the aide shoved our quarry a little too hard it would completely awaken him, and he wasn’t too happy about it all. I don’t know whether he was angry about being so rudely awakened, or having a dream in which he was most probably being laid; spoiled, but in either case he went through the cuss word vocabulary very quickly. To add to his frustration the orderly skipped from the room as we all feigned sleep.
The silent treatment served its purpose quite well, for when he realized the futility of raising hell to a room full of dead ears he angrily pulled his pillow over his head, and went back to sleep. This system worked quite well until the aides became worried that they would be caught, and he would report them to higher ups in Washington.
With the average paraplegic the phrase “higher ups” means his own brain, for that is as far as he dares to let his frustrations and unhappiness go as the old saying of Mark Twain’s still holds true; namely, “Never tell anybody your troubles, for half of the people don’t give a damn, and the other half are damn glad that you have them.” There is one thought which I am going to permit to penetrate through this wall of self-imposed silence, as I want the world to know this truth, “a paraplegic’s mind is a prisoner of his body.” The channels left to him for expressing himself are limited to those few organs whose control he has retained. You might sincerely conclude that this is a very lonely state to which I would respond, “Thank you,” for you have absorbed the thought that we paraplegics have been trying to pass on to the world via books such as this and other media.
Naturally the list of retained healthy organs for quadriplegics as well as paraplegics includes the mouth and tongue, so despite their being forced to present their personal problems to unheeding ears they can still find a method of diversion by taking part in debates and bull sessions pertaining to general hospital gripes. At that time we had something new to bitch about as the wheelchair grapevine brought us word that all the veteran’s hospitals on the west coast were being equipped to show the latest in Cinemascope pictures. This naturally brought us to present the question, “Why not this hospital also?” to the powers who were in charge of the presentation of every motion picture, save those seen on television, that was viewed in the hospital. This took us directly to the horse’s head; the recreation department and its directors.
When asked why they hadn’t brought this problem to their superiors themselves they replied that they had, but it hadn’t done any good. They then freely offered the information that funds had been allocated for the installation of Cinemascope equipment, but Washington just wasn’t releasing them. They also claimed that if the money weren’t used before the next fiscal year began it would have to revert back to the treasury. It was a hard story to swallow, and I became even more skeptical when one night while under the influence of the spirits a member of that office told us something which sounded like a confession of fact. “Joe” he moaned on, “You know we’re doing our best, but our hands are tied. We only work here. Someone on the outside has to send the word to Washington.” It didn’t sound like something that could happen in these democratic United States, but he was actually frightened at the thought of asking someone in authority to break the impasse which was holding back our new projection equipment.
In had been a long time since I had communicated with my friend in Washington, but I carefully drafted a letter to him explaining just what was vexing us, and exactly what I had been told about it. He read the letter, attached it to a note of explanation, and forwarded the two to the late Congresswoman from Massachusetts, Edith Nourse Rogers. A few days later I received a very nice acknowledgement from her saying that she would investigate the matter promptly and personally.
Even a great lady such as she was had to take a little time to do a thorough job of her efforts on behalf of the nation’s ex-servicemen, so with patience and that thought in mind I decided to content myself with watching another of the old type pictures. I remember rolling to the Recreation Hall and chatting with the fellows who were waiting for the shows to start when everything went black. When I regained consciousness I found myself back in bed with my mother sitting at its side. My mind wasn’t clear enough to realize it, but the truth of it was that I was up to my old trick and back on the “critically ill” list.
In the past whenever I was ill or to be treated with surgery I always made it a firm practice not to notify my family until the crisis had passed. When a person becomes critically ill in a veteran’s hospital the doctors make it a practice to take it upon themselves to notify his family. They believe it the proper thing to do in order to build up the patient’s morale by having some of his loved ones closely at hand. This is also the best way of keeping his family informed of his status, but there is nothing like one of those telegrams which notifies your family of what has happened to you to scare the hell out of it. No one has a better knack of frightening unsuspecting loved ones than a government medical authority. The proverbial wire was sent to my mother, but she had almost become hardened to that sort of thing as a civilian hospital shortly before had notified her that my Pop had been admitted to its domain. Now Mom’s days were complete; all she had to do was split herself into two and visit the both of us.
I hadn’t even had a chance to complain to Doctor Kleinman that the boys were unhappy about his failure to supply the wards with their annual Christmas trees when I found myself being surrounded by a posse of germ-chasers. They might have given me a thorough examination when I was delirious, but now all I could see was their being gathered around me in a very impressive huddle. Remembering my habit of eavesdropping they kept well out of ear range, but my past experience with these bouts gave me a fairly good idea that all was not well. The doctors soon stepped from the room, but the confirmation of what I had expected soon presented itself in the form of two aides who put wheels on my bed in preparation to having me transferred to a ward which was better equipped to handle seriously ill patients.
I was a little rusty at being on a service other than paraplegic, but common sense dictated that if I was being sent to the medical service it was for a damn good reason. This service had to be run by a stricter set of rules and regulations, but by that time I was in no mood to break any. I found myself being examined by a young resident whose proficiency reminded me of Doctor Moore. Watching him in action and listening as he expertly outlined my course of treatment to the nurses gave me a sense of reassurance, and though I had just met him I was certain that young Doctor Corwin was certain to do the right thing for me. After a little over a month of his hard work and my being miserable I could no longer be considered critically ill, and the non-immediate family visiting ban was lifted.
Charlie Cahill and Frank Frank, two of the old-timers, had died on the Urology Ward during my siege, and my patient visitors couldn’t wait to bring me the bad news, but in typical paraplegic fashion they countered this by adding, “Joe, don’t you dare die; it’s the wrong time. Congress just gave us a raise.” With that gem of monetary incentive ringing in my ears the rest of my stay on the medical service was not too hard to endure; though it was shortly thereafter that I learned that Willie Pierce the colored boy who at Halloran had helped with my wine problem had died on the floor below ours. Willie may have been able to tolerate the spirits and everything else at Halloran, but at Kingsbridge he died of a complexity of ailments.
The usual collections for gifts for the families of these men were taken up, but as I had been having my own difficulties the fellows wisely decided that it would have been unwise to ask me to add to the fund. What troubled them would have not made too much of an impression on me, for I had long ago grown to accept the misfortunes which are an everyday part of hospital life. I then began to grow bored with the inactivity and quiet which were a necessity on this ward, but when I complained to Doctor Kleinman he smiled and said, “That’s a good sign.”
He didn’t smile for long, for shortly thereafter the Great White Father made an inquiry as to my condition. Running true to form he did it through congressional channels. I was so happy at coming off the critical list that I was in no mood to think of any gripes, but to be certain that the quiet would not get my mind to wandering I was permitted to have a radio at my bedside. It was a useless gesture, for it would have taken more than the pacifying airs of music to keep me from being annoyed by the cold air which was flooding the room. An air conditioning unit had been installed during the summer, but the installer had been lax, and provided winter air conditioning by leaving air leaks around the machine.
We were quite picturesque in that room as we each fought for our lives while also fighting the cold under a pile of six or seven blankets. I had won my fight against my infection and the elements when the word reached me that the Cinemascope, which I had requested from Mrs. Rogers, was being installed in the Recreation Hall. I couldn’t wait to be transferred back to my old service in order to be free in time for the first presentation.
The great day came. I turned in my bottle of Aldurox which was so conspicuously marked For Hospital Use Only, packed my few effects, and made that wonderful journey to what some poor misinformed souls erringly called home. It was far from what anyone would dare to call home, but the paraplegic service was a great comfort, as it didn’t have the moans and groans of that ward full of dying. It was even easier to find a soft-boiled egg in the morning, and the kitchen boys could find one for me the first time and not have to open nine as had happened on the Medical Ward before one soft one could be found.
With my return to whatever status of health being a paraplegic can be called also came my appetite, and I was once again returning to see how much food I could push past my stricture. The kitchen boy looked at me in surprise at supper that evening, for in a quizzical manner I said, “They changed the bread contract, didn’t they?” He scratched his head and replied, “I didn’t even notice; let me check the wrapper on the loaf.” A few minutes later he returned, and still scratching his head as he held his uniform cap in his hand he said, “You’re right, but how did you know?” “It was easy to tell.” I snapped, “This bread has the same soft texture as the type which you can buy in any grocery; there’s none of that institutional flatness to it.” He gave me a knowing smile and added, “Yeah; but it ain’t gonna last more than a week. Once the company is certain that the government is through inspecting it is going to switch to institutional junk the same as all the other bakeries that had the contract did.” The paradox of this was that if my discovery had been about the meat or vegetables a chef would have told me the same story about a butcher or a produce distributor.
Though I had made it safely back to the paraplegic service after my three months’ long encounter with death and septicemia I was not without some new battle scars. Being seriously ill always reduces the body resistance to other problems of paraplegia, and it was to be another month before I was able to heal up the sacral bedsore that my visit to that room filled with old and dying men had given me. With that out of the way I didn’t need any prodding from the local medicine men to get up and start rolling.
That first day I didn’t wander far, but I did take time out to roll to the ward sickroom to watch a sixteen-millimeter movie called “Wings of the Eagle.” It was a story that was dated in the twenties with John Wayne as its star, and it told us the biography of a Naval pilot by the name of Frank (Spig) Weed. During those days of slow aircraft it was great sport to cavort and frolic as it was only possible in those little planes. Spig Weed decided to make an attempt at breaking up his Admiral’s tea party by buzzing it, but instead he crashed. We then learned that they even had paraplegics in those days.
The story then went on to tell of how he passed through an initial period of depression as we all do, but with the doctors looking elsewhere while he overindulged in drink. His plane’s mechanic didn’t share the same despondent outlook as he, and made up his mind that he was going to coax him back to health with the aid of music and a peppy slogan. By repeating loudly in a singsong manner as he strummed his ukulele the words, “Move that toe,” and as if by some miraculous touch; it so did. The extent of his one in a million recovery at the end of the picture was no more than it was for the rest of his life. The best he could do was to hobble around on braces with the aid of canes. He made a gruesome scene struggling about as he did, but we all knew that it was a sight better than any of us dared hope to accomplish.
The doctors told or were supposed to tell us all when we were first injured that if we received no return within the first eighteen months of our paralysis then we were not to expect any. The boys were all well aware of that professional time limit to our happiness, but after that movie our built-in morale builders decided to ignore it. With that miracle producing slogan still ringing in our ears the boys decided to go one step further, and as they rolled to and fro from the ward they could be heard shouting, “Move that toe.” We hated to disillusion them, for we knew that even though the story in the picture was supposed to be true, yelling that one line pep talk wouldn’t help them, for none of them could play a ukulele.
I could still hear the playful shouting as I rolled past the morgue and headed for the Recreation Hall, for the gay blades were reluctant to give up their happy game. I as so many times before parked myself at the hall’s entrance, and waited for the first show to begin. During those enforced periods of waiting the best monotony killer was the old-fashioned American bull session, so finding several in progress but being slightly tired from the long push I rolled to the nearest one. I hadn’t yet had my chance to throw in a word edgewise when I noticed a familiar face coming off the freight elevator. It belonged to Joe Sewer the colored aide who had worked so hard and so ably when I was sick on the Medical Service. This first seeing him in several weeks reminded me of my first learning his name when we met. Its oddness made me think that I had misunderstood, and in an effort to be certain that he would not be insulted had I pronounced his name the way I thought I heard it I addressed him as “Joe Sawyer.” That was my first faux pas, for with a look of indignation in his eye he turned to me and said, “The name is Sewer.” Despite this unhappy little incident he bore me no grudges, and he gave me the best of attention.
As he came off the elevator I could see him pulling a litter, and it took but a second to realize that the blanket on that littler was covering another poor soul who hadn’t been as fortunate as I in escaping death. Joe had to pass our little confab as he made his way to the morgue with the cadaver, and at what I believed to be the right moment, but with mischief in my soul I shouted so that all could hear, “Joe Sewer, are you up to your old tricks again?” Joe was visibly embarrassed, and stuttering for words he meekly answered, “What do you want from me; he was ninety-four years old.” He then accelerated his steps to escape the laughter of the assembled crowd.
It was fun to tease Joe about the dead and the dying, but to keep myself from falling back on the path that led to that waiting room to hell I accepted a friend’s invitation to attend the annual affair which his Home Owners League was having. It was the type of organization where all the elected offices went only to the dopes who were dumb enough to accept the positions, and he was the most gullible of all. Before he could be tied up with official duties he saw to it that I was placed at a table where he felt I would be with people with whom I could converse at ease.
He did his best to impress me as he made introductions that I was meeting a female bank president, a junior high principal, and a professor in nursing education. My friend may have thought that he was doing the right thing when he placed me there, but by being away from the world and in hospitals all those years I found it hard to discuss the assets and merits of the banking business, for I had been out of school long enough to no longer be awed by the sight of the school principal. When it came to the professor it was a greatly different story, for not only was she of a field which was close to home; she was pretty as well. Her years of training had taken their toll of her, and she was past thirty while still not married.
Ignoring the fact that I was a stranger to the group and what she said wasn’t any of my business the bank president started to tease the nurse about her forthcoming spinsterhood. Trying not to display any signs of annoyance the nurse smiled and said, “It can’t be helped; it’s the main occupational hazard of my chosen profession. It’s a feminine world, and there just aren’t enough eligible males left to go around.” Fortunately the entertainment then began, so the subject was dropped. I thought no more of the little affair until one morning several weeks later when my friend stopped at my bedside to gaze at one of the tabloids. He like many other New Yorkers opened the paper directly to the gossip page; only he let out a wild yelp and said, “Look, it’s her!” Despite the drinks which I had been served at the party our old maid had been holding out on us. She made the scandal sheets by being named as the other woman in a divorce case.
The news about her was both surprising and disappointing, for the night of the party she appeared to be the very epitome of womanhood and a credit to Florence Nightingale. I was sober that night and have witnesses to prove it, but nevertheless I was still beguiled. From then on I tried to heed the old adage about a book and its cover. New medical difficulties started to crop up, and so once again I found myself in need of my doctor’s assistance. I didn’t have time to seek help elsewhere, and was forced to accept his aid, and forget my promise to the book and its cover. I reported that I was suffering from severe intestinal cramps, and the rest was up to him.
I received many old tests with which I was well acquainted, and then was introduced to some new ones. A new medical examination after fourteen years in this business was something to really bother my curiosity, but any complete medical checkup involves the basics such as a blood test, and so as a logical part of the pursuit of the cause of my complaint one was ordered. The blood samples for these tests are ordinarily taken by one of the laboratory technicians who is specifically trained for the job. For some strange reason that only he could know the Turkish resident decided to do it. He was here in this country to learn American clinical methods under some sort of exchange student program, and we had inherited him. Those of us who had a chance to speak to him and to learn of his supposed medical skill came to call him “The Mad Turk.” When he wasn’t in our ward dayroom studying an American game called pool he could be found in the doctor’s office with his feet on the desk as he scanned through all the New York papers.
On that particular morning he decided that it was time to catch up on his back homework, and I was his first subject. He didn’t know that when he missed my vein with his first attempt that I was hardened to sloppy blood samplers, and that I wasn’t going to give him the benefit of the doubt for a second stab. Doing my best to insult his ego I told him to send in a technician. He then without a word relit his cigarette and stomped from the room. A few hours later Doctor Weiss and the other regulars came into the room as they made their rounds. I was waiting to catch some sort of hell from one of them as they neared my corner when I learned that they knew nothing of my little insurrection.
Miss Lang the charge nurse then recited the complete story verbatim. I could see them all standing there groping for the proper words to hit me with when I beat them to the punch and said, “Doctor Weiss; you do it.” No one could say a word, but Doctor Weiss broke into a broad smile, and rushed from the foot of my bed where he had been standing to grab my right arm. He still didn’t say anything, but was visibly moved by the sudden vote of confidence which I had given him. He quickly took the sampling as skillfully as he always had, and marched from the room with his entourage following behind as he proudly displayed the blood-laden syringe. Miss Lang lingered behind a minute and said to me before she left, “Joe; do you realize that after all the fights you two have had in the past a compliment like that could kill Doctor Weiss?”
I could have supplied her with an answer which would have taken the initiative away from her by saying, “I was only doing what you people around here should do but don’t, namely thinking of putting the right man on the right job which has always been a mania of mine.” It was permissible to be tolerant, and go along with their lack of decorative ability by not saying anything when they permitted the contractor to Kentile our ward corridor floor in a red and white checkerboard pattern, but when it came to my survival regardless whether the effort were large or small I was going to be the most vociferous and adamant patient they had ever met. Doctor Weiss may not have made much of an impression on me under the title of doctor, but I knew from past experience that he was a damn good blood technician.
Life in our little world of paraplegia continued to roll on in its gay way with spasms of chaos intermixed with monotony when I decided to roll into Stanly Peterson’s room to listen to another one of his lectures on the stock market. Stan like many other Americans never made any money on the market, but he could talk a wonderful profit. Stan besides receiving a low level service connected injury while on police duty in Korea had undergone a few adventures at his own expense. As a youngster while visiting his grandmother in Norway he found himself overcome by the Nazi juggernaut. By joining the underground he fought his way out, and escaped one night on a fishing boat. After these escapades he could have been considered inured to misery, but on that particular morning the expression of pain on his face told me that he had found something which he couldn’t fight. With discomfort in his voice he informed me that he had epididymitis (a painful infection of the testicles which his low level injury enabled him to feel while they were swollen).
I asked Pete why he hadn’t informed the doctors to which he replied that he had. When I asked where the Bellevue Bridge was he said, “The doctors promised to come back later and make one for me.” “Nuts” I replied. “Those things have to be elevated to heal. Here, let me show you how it’s done. It’s really nothing more than a jock strap made of adhesive tape. After finishing my little instruction period I rolled on my way and forgot about Pete and his pain. That afternoon when I passed the doctors in the hall one of them stopped, smiled at me, and said, “A very professional job, Joe.” The rest then continued on their way more stern faced that ever. It was obvious that they had just come from Pete’s room, and so I rolled in. Stan or Pete as I sometimes called him spotted me and quickly said, “Joe, the docs were just here, and when they asked me who had built my bridge; do you know what I said?” “I can’t imagine,” I replied. With mischief in his eye he smiled and spat back, “Doctor Silver.” No wonder the sour faces in the hall.
I had to return to the examinations that were different, and they gave me one that was really different, for I was told that I was having serious trouble with my pancreas. The doctors prescribed a low-fat diet as the therapy for my condition, and such a diet to a skinny person such as I could have been my death knell. I had been living basically on eggnogs the main ingredients of which are milk and eggs. The hurt was that both of these were on the list of forbidden foods. When I complained of pain Doctor Weiss told me to go see Doctor Abel; the Chief of Physical Medicine. He in turn told me that at the Bronx Veteran’s Hospital they only gave pain medications for cancer, and if I wanted any relief I’d have to go to another hospital.
For nine years I had incurred his wrath by asking for the best for paraplegics, and that his bureaucratic mind could not tolerate. He had waited a long time for an opportunity to be rid of me, and though my body and its pains were aiding him I was determined to fight it through. I wasn’t proud, and took anything I could lay my hands on to counter my discomfort. By being doctors they were automatically in the right, and I was fighting a losing battle. They could have put me in a locked ward, said my complaint was all mental, and thrown away the key. I on the other hand was preparing to file a legal suit against the hospital, but my body’s pain made the decision for me, forcing me to yield. I left for what I hoped would be greener pastures.