"I've Already Decided to Admit You to the Clinic"

I'm sitting on a bench in warm spring sunshine outside the Crile Building and while waiting for the valet-parking guy to bring my car so I can drive home after visiting Paul in the H Building, I think about the worries I've had for him since he came here last Sunday (the 20th) when his situation seemed life-threatening. There's a little green park across the way with a paved walk bordered with little flowering trees and it's the only pretty thing in sight. To look at it is to be consoled. All the rest as far as I can see is huge construction jobs with cranes poking the skyline as the Cleveland Clinic continues to expand in all directions.

We're learning about illness as we're going along because until recently nothing really serious has happened to us until Paul learned he had a cancer growing in his dilapidated lung. Hospitals haven't been high on our list of visits. The lung disease until now hasn't stopped him from enjoying life's pursuits and ironically just before the operation he was particularly vigorous. The op put paid to that, as was expected, but unexpected were the complications that have since arisen.

Last Friday (18th) Paul developed congestion, sniffles and a mild temperature. When Cheryl, the physical therapist visited in the afternoon she noticed that the vigor he had on Wednesday had gone away and he couldn't manage her very easy exercises, and when in the evening he felt even worse, I decided to get him to the Medina Hospital E.R. where after the usual triage wait--about an hour--they put him to bed, gave him oxygen, and set about putting him through every test and procedure possible, including a multitude of blood works, x-rays, Cat scan, eko cardiogram, etc. But after all that the dr. in charge decided not to admit him, because she could only establish that he had some fluid near the incision area--but not pneumonia. Seemed strange to me that she wasn't ready to anticipate its development.

Saturday the 19th at home was miserable as Paul felt no better, and in the middle of the night he fell on the floor as he got out of bed to go to the bathroom. So early Sunday morning I sped him up to Cleveland and the Clinic's ER. There they immediately put him to bed and a doctor examined him right away. Again he went to X-ray, but the doctor said to us, "I don't really care care what the X-ray reveals. I've already decided to admit you. Obviously you are ill and need our help." Dr. Wilson seemed very young (as most of them do these days in our old eyes) but she spoke with a confidence that speaks volumes about the Cleveland Clinic.

So by early Sunday afternoon Paul was installed in a room in the H Building and hooked up immediately to IVs feeding antibiotics straight into his veins and I returned home with big feelings of relief that he was in the best hands possible. Never again will I take him into Medina ER. Medina is excellent for non life-threatening events, and the staff are kind and competent, but for Paul, with the very first suspicious signs, he'll be on his way back to Cleveland. Live and learn. Or, perhaps, Learn and Live!

Now it's Tuesday evening and what a difference two days have made. He has come a long way, even from yesterday when he needed two people to help him walk a few steps to being able to walk on his own for a few yards. He's become interested in his fellow patients (two in a room) and the unusual cases they represent and enjoys every meal that's put in front of him.

His lead doctor told him that late on the night he was admitted a team of doctors gathered to discuss approaches to his case (sort of like the doctors in "House M.D." I gather.) The lead is Ves Dimov, M.D. and a quick look at his bio on the Clinic's website tells that he's from Sofia, Bulgaria and one of his interests is perioperative medicine--a specialty concerned with what can happen "around" an operation. He also calls himself a "hospitalist" and I must look that up because it's a new word to me. Not only do patients come from around the globe, but the medical staff does as well.

To be continued.......