After EMS: Life With Dignity
This article is part of an ongoing series from Mike Rubin. In this series, he’ll reflect on his career and share practical retirement advice for emergency medical personnel. Catch up on articles you missed.
At dawn on his 73rd birthday, George woke to the sound of pans and plates rattling downstairs in the kitchen. Must be Irma, he thought.
His wife was an early riser. She’d make him breakfast, then start her errands. George didn’t mind. He had little interest in where she went and would sometimes stay in bed until she came back. No one at the deli where he worked seemed to care if he was late. He was pretty sure the people who ran that place didn’t like him much.
“Georgie? Are you getting ready?” The voice from the kitchen was cheerful. “Today’s a special day, remember?”
George didn’t know what Irma meant. Special day? Maybe it had something to do with his kids. He’d tried visiting Annie at Christmas, but she wasn’t home. Neither was Dave, who had to take care of something somewhere. George missed them both and didn’t understand why they were always away.
“I’m getting dressed,” he shouted while putting on his only pair of “nice-looking pants,” as Irma called them. Usually, socks and a robe would be enough for George, but Irma had left the brown slacks on the clothing chair the night before, so he’d know what to wear.
He looked at himself in the bedroom mirror. Not bad, he thought, but his blue-striped robe made his pants look wrong. Or maybe it was the other way around. Irma would fix that. He took them off for now and wore just white socks with his robe. Then he walked from the bedroom to the top of the stairs, grabbed the rails on both sides as Irma had taught him, and made it to the bottom with only one bowel movement. George knew Irma wouldn’t like that, but he was already thinking about other things as he entered the kitchen.
Irma stood near the window above the sink, stuffing supplies into a bag. She turned when she heard his footsteps.
“Hi hon’,” she said. “C’mon, we have to get ready.”
“I am ready. I want to see the kids.”
“I know, but remember how we talked about your birthday—how we’d have breakfast first, then sit by that pond you like?”
“But I’m not hungry!” George said, stomping one foot for emphasis. “I want to see the kids. I want my special day. You promised!”
“Okay, okay, just take it easy now, Georgie. We have to get you dressed.”
“My name’s George, not Georgie. You keep calling me Georgie!”
“And you keep calling me Irma, but I’m Carol, your nurse. Irma was your wife.”
“I don’t want Carol, I want Irma. Get Irma!”
“I can’t, George. Irma’s not here. We’ve been over this many times.”
“I want Irma and my kids!” George said, his voice breaking. “They’ll think I’m gone.” He lowered himself into a chair at the kitchen table and sobbed.
“Oh Georgie, Georgie,” Carol said across from him, clasping his hands. “You’re not gone. You’re here, but your kids…there aren’t any. There never were. And there’s no Irma—not anymore. It’s just you and me.”
George didn’t understand. He rarely did. He felt hopeless and alone, even with Carol there. There was no deli, no place to work—just a newspaper stand near his apartment, opposite an ancient rolled-down security gate where a drug store once was. George passed that storefront often during walks around the neighborhood.
For some reason, that grimy corner of a city block reminded him of a place from another time where he could eat lunch for less than a buck. The franks with sauerkraut were his favorite, George recalled, but he still wasn’t sure how to use a toilet or when to wear pants.
His robe was no problem. He found it on the clothing chair whenever Carol visited.
Mike's Thoughts
Poor George. He’s a composite of friends, family, and a few former patients of mine who suffered from dementia. I feel connected to them, not because of their disease, but how easily some folks tune them out. That happens a lot to the old and disabled.
U.S. culture has changed during the last 10-15 years—don’t you think? Americans are bolder about disparaging minorities; the elderly, for example, because we’re vulnerable. Most of us have learned to live with progressive handicaps, but uncertainty about Social Security, Medicare, and other aid doesn’t only threaten our health, it compromises our dignity as we become more dependent on others to help navigate the new normal.
Despite many years of public service, my fellow-retirees and I now have to compete for healthcare funding with a newly proposed trillion-dollar defense budget. “We’re fighting wars,” the president says in an April 2nd AP article. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare—all these individual things.”
Those individual things are essential forms of support for millions of Americans. Self-indulgent wars are not.
Mike’s Exit Poll #17: Do you struggle to communicate with the chronically disabled?
If the patient were verbal, I’d usually start a conversation and hope to discover something we have in common—family, hobbies, a vacation spot, a favorite song. With someone struggling like George, I’d settle for anything that would help us connect in the time we had together.
Mocking the unwell is a sideshow that only the ignorant find entertaining.
About the Author
Mike Rubin is a retired paramedic and the author of Life Support, a collection of EMS stories. Contact Mike at mgr22@prodigy.net.
