Independence Day
My father had a strange relationship with national patriotic holidays. He was born on Flag Day and used to tell us that his mother had him convinced that everybody was hanging out flags in honor of his birthday.
Then, about 13 years after his kidneys failed, he got a call in the early morning hours of July 4. A kidney was available for transplant. He & Mom rushed to Piedmont Hospital and checked in, and then...waited. The doctor was stuck on the other side of Peachtree Street by a seething mass of runners!
Hence, "Independence Day."
The transplant was a success and he had probably a couple of good years with the new kidney, but eventually the anti-rejection regime damaged his body too much. The best quality of life he had after his kidneys failed was when he was doing Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis. I think he might still be with us today if he'd been able to keep that up, but incompetent nursing staff ruined his peritoneal access site after he had bypass surgery one year, by permitting it to become infected. Dad saw it coming a mile away, too. CAPD was new to most hospitals then, and there was a briefing before he went into the surgery where he showed the necessary anti-infection precautions. The nurses, largely, slept through it. And after the surgery he woke from the anesthesia to see his dialysate draining into an open bucket on the floor, instead of the required sterile bag.
He'd been happy on CAPD, but he lost the access site shortly after that hospital experience and went back onto hemodialysis. I can only imagine the hope that accompanied the transplant, but ultimately it's what took him away, in my opinion. All because some nurses slept through a presentation.
Thanks a lot, ladies!
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Yo, bro. And when he got an audience with the chief nurse, I witnessed her telling him how hard nurses have it, and how they need political support to advance their causes. What a tool--damn near kill a patient and then tell him to go agitate his congressman. I felt like screaming, "Just teach the f---ing procedure!"
I got trapped by the runners, too. I made it to Buckhead before the race started, but of course Peachtree Street was already blocked to traffic. I crossed my fingers and parked on a neighborhood street off of Lindbergh, then walked all the way to Piedmont Hospital. The sidewalk was so crowded I had to walk in the street, and thousands of people swivelled heads around to watch this solo figure walking up the race course. I had to jump to the sidewalk when the wheelchair racers started whizzing through.
That was a hopeful time, when Dad got that kidney.
Posted by: Chris Jones | July 4, 2003 11:59 AM
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Here is a nice, relaxed picture:
http://www.revoltingdevelopment.com/image/ntn.jpg
"ntn" stands for Neil The Nerd, Dad's self-imposed moniker from his days on the Atlanta MaDhOuSe BBS (bovious also frequented that BBS, and I may have just opened a floodgate...we'll see). The ntn name made me cringe at first, but now I realize that Dad was into nerdiness before it was cool.
Hail to The Nerd!
Posted by: Chris Jones | July 4, 2003 12:09 PM
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Deluge? Moi? I'd as soon forget about those pantywaists. Wonder if they've yet plumbed the endless fascination of feline's fecal color & texture.
OK, that was mean. They were good friends to Dad, tho' I think even he wearied of the personal minutiae on display. I just could never stand 'em, try as I might.
Posted by: Brian Jones | July 7, 2003 11:53 AM
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Nurses are in that weird grey area where they're rightfully regarded as put-upon, and that has given them a woefully inflated opinion of themselves as a group. Every nurse save one who I've spoken with at any length has, within 10 minutes of my learning his profession, favored me with the usual "Doctors have the degree but we do the patient care" speech designed to make all doctors look like assholes and all nurses look like saints. It always seems to get around to that. Not to harp on Dad's case, but it was the nurses who screwed him over.
Posted by: Brian Jones | July 7, 2003 11:58 AM