I sometimes wonder who was responsible for setting up the way medicine works in the western world today. It's pretty screwy, when you think about it. The entire focus on fixing broken bodies, instead of keeping people healthy, is, well, just weird and is largely responsible for the medical mess our world has found itself in lately. All of the doctors that I have known have been completely clueless on the subject of alternative techniques - even such simple concepts as vitamins were beyond the majority of them. When Claudia was in the hospital recently, her doctor (Dr. Stern) was not aware of the value of St. John's Wort in helping with depression and mood changes. Several years ago, my wife was on major pain killers for severe chronic pain in her back - and this was completely resolved with a few visits to a chiropractor. It never even occurred to her many doctors that her pain could be the result of a nerve being pinched by her rib, yet the chiropractor was able to completely handle it so she no longer needed pain medication at all, and avoided the risky and obviously unnecessary surgery recommended by the medical experts.
I returned to the hospital a few hours later to find out what was happening with my wife. She was still in the emergency room and, to tell you the truth, she looked pretty bad. She had tubes going into her arm and a more or less permanent nurse watching over her.
This nurse was a big man who could have easily passed for a wrestler. He had huge arms with tattoos everywhere. However, I quickly realized he was the first competent person I had seen since Claudia arrived at Queen of Angels. He knew what he was doing and he explained it all to me in terms that I could understand. He also listened (the first person to do so that day) and actually seemed to care about my wife.
He asked me to help him take her temperature and insert some tubes here and there, which I was happy to do. I also helped him turn her over, and he allowed me to stay in the room for as long as I wanted. I stuck around for about an hour, then had to leave because the hospital finally was moving Claudia to intensive care.
I met the orderly upstairs and watched as they moved my wife from one bed to another. The nurses chased me out of the room and told me to come back in a few hours. I went home and caught a little sleep.
The next day I decided to work from home - I have a very good internet set up and thus could actually get some real work done from my little office in our place. I wanted to be near my wife in case I was needed.
I went over to the hospital in the morning and ran into Dr. Sterz. I had some difficulty with this man from the beginning as he tended to talk to the floor instead of me - and for some reason I find it annoying. I kept wanting to shake the man, telling him "hey, I'm up here!".
Dr. Sterz didn't waste any words, and he certainly didn't spare any human feelings. I ran into Dr. Sterz half a dozen times during Claudia's stay in the hospital, and as far as I can tell the man had no feelings at all for the human beings under his care, and even less for their relatives and friends. He simply didn't care one way or another about my wife or me or what we were going through. It was plainly obvious that to him she was a broken body and his job was to get her patched up enough so she would become someone else's problem. It really was that simple to him.
He did, however, strike me as competent. Uncaring, yes. No feelings of any kind for my wife, yes. But competent. So I decided to allow him to remain on as my wife's primary doctor during her stay in the hospital.
As soon as Dr. Sterz and I exchanged introductions, I asked him how my wife was doing. His answer was shocking, "Terrible", he said, "absolutely terrible." He explained, briefly, that she had a lung disease and he was not sure at this point whether or not she could be saved. He said this with about as much emotion as if he was discussing what have for dinner. It was obvious that he didn't care that he was talking about someone who was loved, who was a human being. To him, my wife was just a set of data on a series of reports.
I went away from that meeting a little disturbed. I couldn't quite put my finger on what was bothering me, but something didn't feel right.
While I was there, I did tell Dr Sterz that my wife was under no conditions to receive any psychiatric treatments of any kind. No psychiatric drugs and no visits from psychiatrists. Period. I made sure this was written into her chart and was clear to everyone there was to be no discussion. This is one area where my wife and I will not compromise - we don't like psychiatrists and don't want anything to do with them and their ilk.
The next day I met her other doctor, a man named Dr. Rothfeld. He was her pulmonary specialist. Dr. Rothfeld also had the annoying habit of talking to things other than me. While the words came out of his mouth he pointed his eyes at the floor, the ceiling, the bed, the wall, the chart (mostly the chart), anything but me. It's a very strange feeling to be in a conversation with someone who won't look you in the eye. Creepy.
Dr. Rothfeld was even more uncaring and abrupt than Dr. Sterz. When I asked how my wife was doing, this man said, "she's doing horrible". He then turned back to his chart. I wanted a little more data than that, so I pressed for details. This seemed to really annoy him, not that I cared about annoying him, but he continued after a long pause, "she's the worst patient I've ever seen. She won't stop moving. She keeps trying to take out the breathing tube, she moves her legs, she pulls out her tubes."
The man actually threw his hands in the air at this point, "I don't know what to do. I need to get a psychiatrist in here so she can be placed on better drugs so she's stop moving around..."
I interrupted Dr. Rothfeld at this point and told him, in a tone of voice that allowed for no argument, that if a psychiatrist stepped foot into my wife's room he and the hospital would get a lawsuit like none they had ever seen before. He glared at me and mumbled something to himself that I chose not to hear, then spent a few minutes attempting to change my mind. I cut him off, "the subject is closed."
One thing impressed me about Dr. Rothfeld during the next few days - he was competent. He, even more so than Dr. Sterz, was an uncaring, almost inhuman person, but he did know his subject. His job was to help the body repair lungs, and that's what he did with my wife.
It was clear from the beginning, though, that Dr. Rothfeld shared the exact same goal as Dr. Sterz - to get this patient to the point where she became someone else's problem.
Dr. Rothfeld would have been happy to leave the discussion at that point, but I needed more information. I wanted to know what he was going to do and what was going to happen.
He explained, very briefly, that her chances for survival were very poor. Her lungs were full of fluid and were very diseased. She was being kept alive with a breathing machine and was being held unconscious with extreme doses of sedatives. Huge doses, in fact, well beyond what is normal and accepted.
I pressed as this did not really answer my question, and Dr. Rothfeld angrily (and I didn't ever find him in a mood other than anger or outright hostility) told me that "she's a smoker, what do you want me to do?" He added her lungs were seriously damaged, perhaps permanently, and even if she did survive she might never leave the hospital again and she might need a tube inserted into her throat - especially if she kept trying to pull out the breathing tube.
I spent a few more minutes with my wife then left. I walked home, barely keeping myself together, until I just started to cry uncontrollably. It was a rough trip home.
Unless otherwise noted, all photos and text is Copyright © Richard G Lowe, Jr.