Geriatrics
signout | July 2, 2007I have a secret crush on one of my patients, an 85-year old man who's recovering from a bad pneumonia. After a weeklong stay in the intensive care unit, he has recovered at a remarkable pace: the day after he was extubated, he was out of bed with a physical therapist, making his way slowly around the ward with a walker and a big smile.
What motivates him to work so hard at recovery, the nurses say, is his love for his wife. They have been married 60 years. She comes in to see him every day, wheeled around by their daughter. The whole time she is there, they say, he holds her hand as if it is…
signout | March 8, 2007"I'm a 70-year old basket case," he said.
He was right. He'd been admitted a month before for workup of what was thought to be a relapse of a malignant melanoma--an aggressive cancer. His chart told a story of overwhelming chronic anxiety and depression dominating his adult life and resulting in a near-total inability to care for himself. His mental illness featured prominently in his hospitalization; most mornings, when I scanned his chart, there were notes from the nursing staff about him crying out in the night, and notes from the chaplaincy service about the previous day's existential…
signout | September 26, 2006Although I more or less like all little old ladies, there's a certain subset of the genre that I love. The ones who are over 80 with the skinny bodies and the voices creaky like rocking chairs-they completely do me in.
When I go into their hospital rooms early in the mornings, I watch them for a moment before I wake them. I love their little heads drooping to the side like heavy blossoms while they sleep. I love the curls their skinny hands make around the covers. I love their little bellies, soft and round like puppies'. God help me, if it's wrong to love an old lady's belly, I don't want to…