MERCI JEAN

My hospital story would be incomplete without telling you about my second roomie…Jean. A rotund man of about 70, Jean was suffering from COPD and some dementia. I don’t know why that meant he had to wear an adult diaper but then again, it appeared to me that I was one of the few on the Respiratory Floor without one.

Jean seemed a bit confused upon arrival to his shared accommodation. I quickly discovered that he was a true linguist as he spoke English, French, Spanish and Italian. The problem was that he spoke them all at the same time and I quickly became his interpreter/confidante/menu planner. He tried in vain to call his son, his mute telephone a bleak reminder that he was terribly alone.

He rambled on and on into the night and my inept French vocabulary only seemed to encourage him the more. In desperation, I cried, “Je veux m’endormir”. He seemed to settle and I resented the sound of his fitful snoring.

At six fifteen the next morning, I jumped out of bed, put on my red golf shirt (my energizer shirt) and went down to the Tim Horton’s in the lobby to buy a coffee for Jean (no sugar please...just sweetener for my diabetic roomie). He was happy to receive a real coffee but asked, “Where is my doughnut?” Must be the dementia talking, I thought.

Later, after breakfast, he seemed very agitated as he conversed with our nurse, June. It took quite a while for June and I to piece together the fact that he had lost his Rolex watch (I wish I’d known the Italian word for watch) when he was transferred from a cubicle in Emergency the previous evening.  It had been a gift from his father and so had sentimental as well as monetary value. June tried several times that morning to convince Jean that she was doing everything she could to retrieve the watch…but she wasn’t doing a very good job convincing anyone (Jean or myself).

Out of my desire to help Jean and a need to sublimate my cancer news, I decided to play Colombo. When I told the nursing station I was going downstairs to investigate, they seemed so genuinely relieved that I was taking action, I thought they might try to find me an oversized white raincoat and a notepad.

As I arrived in Emergency, I realized that although the cast of characters was different, the same paralyzing dread filled the waiting room. I explained my quest to the elderly volunteer whose presence brought a wistful calm to her tiny welcome station.  She seemed confused by my Tiger Woods shirt so I flashed my hospital wristband to confirm my insider status. She directed me to two security guards standing near the exterior Emergency Room doors. The burly one with the oily hair was sympathetic to my Rolex queries and put down his I-phone to give me his full attention.

“We have a safe for special items like that”, he shared, “but I think it was empty last time I checked”. Cynically, I couldn’t help but think that he was using the hospital safe to store his hair care products. Unlike Columbo, I could think of no ruse to confirm my suspicion.

His partner agreed to speak to the charge nurse and disappeared through a set of double doors. Minutes later he emerged with news that wheels were in motion. If possible, the Rolex would be retrieved.

Despondently, I couldn’t face returning to Jean empty handed. I went outside and took momentary refuge on a quiet bench sitting incongruously next to an Emergency sign. I wasn’t alone for long when a scruffy young man with a bandage on his head befriended me. He explained that he had been hurt on the job and was worried about how to get his car back. The slur in his speech and the fact that he wasn’t wearing any shoes seriously undermined the veracity of his story. As we sat, a second MMA casualty came running by, screaming wildly. I had found two lemons. 

When I returned to my room, I was shocked and delighted by the news that Jean’s Rolex had been returned. When I asked to see his Holy Grail, he said it was in the unsecured locker across from his bed. The fact that it was not safely on his wrist belied the fact that although he was reunited with his father, the link with his errant son was far more important to him.

When nurse June appeared, she was full of smiles, overly appreciative of my sleuthing prowess. Tentatively, she said, “May I ask a favour?” Realizing that I was on the cusp of receiving the Patient of the Year Award, I answered magnanimously, “Anything you want June, no problem”.

Twenty minutes later June reappeared with a much too smiley supervising nurse who explained that, although not a recent nursing grad, June needed some experience inserting patient IV lines. Cutbacks at the hospital predicated that all nurses needed this skill with the imminent dissolution of the hospital IV team. Looking at the purple splotch on the back of my right hand, I realized that I must have been stabbed by a rogue nurse sometime in the past three days. I offered the back of my left hand and winced as June tentatively inserted a needle.

“That’s too bad”, offered the supervisor. “Sir, your vein seemed to roll there”.

“I didn’t realize that they had obedience school for veins”, I wanted to shoot back. June got it right the second time and was horrified by the prospect that I might have matching hands by the next morning.

It had been such a busy day that only at its end did I have time to think about my diagnosis. Jean afforded me the luxury of a good night’s sleep as he spent the night walking the halls doing his best security guard imitation. By morning he was a wreck and complained he was cold. I pulled my green sweatshirt over his head and hoped he would settle in bed. Terry surprised me at eight o’clock with a McDonald’s breakfast that we ate in the lobby. When we returned to my room, I was in for an even bigger surprise. Jean was sound asleep…in my bed.

Although Jean was quietly snoring when I returned from my afternoon biopsy, thankfully he was back in his own bed. Now I suppose that you would like to hear that when Jean finally did wake up, he thanked me for all my trouble and wished me the best of good luck. However, as this story belongs in the non-fiction category, let’s just say he never really woke up before I left for home in the early evening.

As I raised my left arm to quietly wave him goodbye, I noticed evidence of a new purple blotch on the back of my hand. My heart smiled and I couldn’t help but think of another man, One with two pierced and bloody hands, who also left without a thank you.

Bonne nuit mon ami.

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom  of heaven

Matthew 5:3