The chart said that he was homeless.
I had reviewed his chart. Knew what little of his history that was available. Hasty notations documented in the ER notes – his being found, unconscious, intoxicated, freezing in the aftermath of a late afternoon snowstorm in rual town in Texas. The vital signs recorded by the EMS crew. An admission K+ of 3.1 mEq/L – a pretty safe bet that that was the result of malnutrition and alcoholism.
But what triggered something deep within me was his age. Thirty-eight.
The chart said that he was homeless.
There were ER notes of wrapping him in a “buddy blanket” to warm him to 97 deg F.
To be wrapped in a “buddy blanket.”
I am human. I am gay. Of course there were thoughts welling within me about “buddy blankets.”
I was sitting across the work-space in the ICU from his nurse. After reading the chart, making some notes on my worksheet, I muttered something under my breath about malnutrition. His nurse muttered something about it being more likely alcoholism.
His cubical, ICU 500-02, was darkened. I entered, not quite knowing what to expect.
And there on the bed, very much sound asleep, that 38 y.o. homeless man looked like the picture of contentment. Certainly, his bushy red hair was tousled; his bushy red beard needed trimming. His breathing was regular and deep. He was not arousable to the call of his name.
He lay there like a helpless infant, wrapped in a swaddling of warm, thick blankets, tightly tucked around him. Obviously done by his nurse. His male nurse.
I was flooded with questions . . . but he was incapable of answering.
Who was this man? His name suggested a Scotch-Irish heritage – and he looked the part.
Why was he homeless? About the right age to be a veteran of the Desert Storm war – and why are there so many veterans homeless?
What did he do for food? What grocery stores would give him outdated food? Which church soup kitchens had two, or three, or four star ratings? Where were the more reliable dumpsters around town? And the ethanol? Where from? How much? How often?
Had he sought out government assistance? Exhausted it? Denied it? Been denied of it?
And if he hadn’t past out in the snow, where should he have been? Was anyone expecting him there. Did anybody notice that he might have been “missing”? Did anybody care? Was there anybody to care?
Where did he toilet? And what vestiges of dignity remained with that?
But he was not arousable. I couldn’t even ask him about his last meal. But I knew from the chart that he had consumed “100%” of it. “It” being a “Regular Diet.”
What the hell is a “regular diet” to a homeless man?
I am human. I am gay. And I couldn’t help but ask deep within myself, who is there that loves him?
A drunk, homeless man, in an intensive care unit recovering from hypothermia.
On occasion, I have seen young men in their open casket. It leaves one with a residual image that does not dissipate.
And as I looked at this swaddled man, a flicker of humanity that might very well be a living dead man, I knew there would be an indelible image burned within me.
For his age of 38 triggered things within me.
I thought of my friend who is also 38. My friend’s circumstances are so far different, for his being so much a very living living man.
And I thought of myself at age 38. Nearing the pinnacle of my military career. Yet, but for the grace of God, why was not that me?
And in those few moments that I spent in that ICU cubicle, like a viewing in a funeral chapel, he looked like what he needed more than anything in this world was a human hug from not some “buddy blanket” but from some buddy.
And at that point I experienced a flash back to when I was not 38, but 28. Stationed at an Army hospital in Kentucky. While there, a captain nurse-anesthetist arrived and being another Seventh-day Adventist, we struck up a friendship.
There was an occasion when my wife and children took a week to visit with her parents before we were transferred to Alaska, and so I was staying behind alone. On Friday evening, Paul came over for a visit. We were going to prepare for a little presentation of some kind in a small rural SDA church in the area the next day.
And in the course of the conversation during that evening, he started to lament of the differences between he and I. How I had someone, my spouse, to hold, to hug, to cuddle, to feel a part of.
How he had no one.
Little did he know that hurt in my heart he was stoking.
If he is gay, I know not. He was single, late 20’s, and longing for a relationship for which he was denied.
In some futile way, he too was crying out for the experience to love and to be loved. To hold and to be held. To cuddle and to be cuddled. To touch and to be touched.
My heart was tearing apart. I wanted to just go over to him. To hold him, to hug him. To cuddle him. To console him.
But on pain of death would I do that.
As a gay man masquerading as a bonafide heterosexual in a supposedly God ordained entrapment of unholy matrimony with a straight woman, I would have died first. Besides, we were both in the Army.
To console another man longing for the experience of being held was death-defying impossible for me.
Yet I longed for that experience even more than he was willing to verbalize his need.
And as then, so many years ago, somehow, the spell was broken that Friday evening, and now, was breaking again.
I tried one more time, maintaining the subdued atmosphere of an ICU cubicle, daring not to resort to the trumpeting of the Angel Gabriel in calling out his name. He stayed unrousable. A depth of sleep the homeless seldom experience.
And yet, the burned in image of a man giving the appearance of being in so desperate need to be held, to be hugged.
But the uninterrupted breathing of a dried out and warmed up homeless man sleeping in an intensive care unit is a moment sacred and to be respected.
I must move on. There are others to be seen. I would have to document his nutrition care plan without the “subjective” part of the assessment.
And move on I did, for I too must live the “objective” part of my own existence with numbers of “38” haunting me in the sacredness of my own non-ICU cubicle of homelessness.
May we each find our own intensive care unit, that sacred respite from homelessness.
The Refectory Manager
But what triggered something deep within me was his age. Thirty-eight.
The chart said that he was homeless.
There were ER notes of wrapping him in a “buddy blanket” to warm him to 97 deg F.
To be wrapped in a “buddy blanket.”
I am human. I am gay. Of course there were thoughts welling within me about “buddy blankets.”
I was sitting across the work-space in the ICU from his nurse. After reading the chart, making some notes on my worksheet, I muttered something under my breath about malnutrition. His nurse muttered something about it being more likely alcoholism.
His cubical, ICU 500-02, was darkened. I entered, not quite knowing what to expect.
And there on the bed, very much sound asleep, that 38 y.o. homeless man looked like the picture of contentment. Certainly, his bushy red hair was tousled; his bushy red beard needed trimming. His breathing was regular and deep. He was not arousable to the call of his name.
He lay there like a helpless infant, wrapped in a swaddling of warm, thick blankets, tightly tucked around him. Obviously done by his nurse. His male nurse.
I was flooded with questions . . . but he was incapable of answering.
Who was this man? His name suggested a Scotch-Irish heritage – and he looked the part.
Why was he homeless? About the right age to be a veteran of the Desert Storm war – and why are there so many veterans homeless?
What did he do for food? What grocery stores would give him outdated food? Which church soup kitchens had two, or three, or four star ratings? Where were the more reliable dumpsters around town? And the ethanol? Where from? How much? How often?
Had he sought out government assistance? Exhausted it? Denied it? Been denied of it?
And if he hadn’t past out in the snow, where should he have been? Was anyone expecting him there. Did anybody notice that he might have been “missing”? Did anybody care? Was there anybody to care?
Where did he toilet? And what vestiges of dignity remained with that?
But he was not arousable. I couldn’t even ask him about his last meal. But I knew from the chart that he had consumed “100%” of it. “It” being a “Regular Diet.”
What the hell is a “regular diet” to a homeless man?
I am human. I am gay. And I couldn’t help but ask deep within myself, who is there that loves him?
A drunk, homeless man, in an intensive care unit recovering from hypothermia.
On occasion, I have seen young men in their open casket. It leaves one with a residual image that does not dissipate.
And as I looked at this swaddled man, a flicker of humanity that might very well be a living dead man, I knew there would be an indelible image burned within me.
For his age of 38 triggered things within me.
I thought of my friend who is also 38. My friend’s circumstances are so far different, for his being so much a very living living man.
And I thought of myself at age 38. Nearing the pinnacle of my military career. Yet, but for the grace of God, why was not that me?
And in those few moments that I spent in that ICU cubicle, like a viewing in a funeral chapel, he looked like what he needed more than anything in this world was a human hug from not some “buddy blanket” but from some buddy.
And at that point I experienced a flash back to when I was not 38, but 28. Stationed at an Army hospital in Kentucky. While there, a captain nurse-anesthetist arrived and being another Seventh-day Adventist, we struck up a friendship.
There was an occasion when my wife and children took a week to visit with her parents before we were transferred to Alaska, and so I was staying behind alone. On Friday evening, Paul came over for a visit. We were going to prepare for a little presentation of some kind in a small rural SDA church in the area the next day.
And in the course of the conversation during that evening, he started to lament of the differences between he and I. How I had someone, my spouse, to hold, to hug, to cuddle, to feel a part of.
How he had no one.
Little did he know that hurt in my heart he was stoking.
If he is gay, I know not. He was single, late 20’s, and longing for a relationship for which he was denied.
In some futile way, he too was crying out for the experience to love and to be loved. To hold and to be held. To cuddle and to be cuddled. To touch and to be touched.
My heart was tearing apart. I wanted to just go over to him. To hold him, to hug him. To cuddle him. To console him.
But on pain of death would I do that.
As a gay man masquerading as a bonafide heterosexual in a supposedly God ordained entrapment of unholy matrimony with a straight woman, I would have died first. Besides, we were both in the Army.
To console another man longing for the experience of being held was death-defying impossible for me.
Yet I longed for that experience even more than he was willing to verbalize his need.
And as then, so many years ago, somehow, the spell was broken that Friday evening, and now, was breaking again.
I tried one more time, maintaining the subdued atmosphere of an ICU cubicle, daring not to resort to the trumpeting of the Angel Gabriel in calling out his name. He stayed unrousable. A depth of sleep the homeless seldom experience.
And yet, the burned in image of a man giving the appearance of being in so desperate need to be held, to be hugged.
But the uninterrupted breathing of a dried out and warmed up homeless man sleeping in an intensive care unit is a moment sacred and to be respected.
I must move on. There are others to be seen. I would have to document his nutrition care plan without the “subjective” part of the assessment.
And move on I did, for I too must live the “objective” part of my own existence with numbers of “38” haunting me in the sacredness of my own non-ICU cubicle of homelessness.
May we each find our own intensive care unit, that sacred respite from homelessness.
The Refectory Manager
posted by The Refectory Manager | 9:01 PM
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