CHAPTER 216 IMPRESSIONS OF MY LIFE: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A RECHERCHE POET. ALONG CAME A PANDEMIC AND A STROKE 2020

 CHAPTER 216: HERE COMES A PANDEMIC AND MY STROKE 2020

 

On January 13 (unlucky number that date) the first case of Covid-19 was reported in Everett,
Washington. The first death from  it in the U.S.occurred in February.  The first reported outbreaks of this SARs related virus were in Wuhan, Hubei, China. Real notice of the threat was not by the CDC in May.

I was still taking long walks in the mornings, oblivious, like most, to what was coming in this year. I was still relying on my trusty walking stick, but I was about to be scared off the stick by an odd occurrence at Rockwood. I notice as I came through the wall opening from the Kitchen Garden at Rockwood, down along the drive in front of the mansion two police cars were parked side-by-side.  I though nothing of it. Police in. Rockwood were hardly an uncommon sight. I went back through the garden and then out to the Carriage House parking lot to get the car I was using.  

 

My car had been in an accident that week and I had a
rental from Enterprise, covered by my insurance. Although I had requested a small, compact car, they gave me a Chevy Explorer. It was enormous and I hated I, but that was what I was stuck with. My daughter told me what happened next was because I was driving a “Predator’s Car”.

Maybe. 

 exit road. I could not get up the drive though for those two cop vehicles stopped side by side blocking the road at the far end of the mansion.

I sat and waited. I though one of them upon seeing me would pull over and allow some room, but that didn’t happen. Then a police cruiser pulled up behind me. I figured because of this the cops would move over to let their fellow officer pass and I would follow him out.

But they didn’t. The cop behind waited a hike, then he backed up and went out the lane in the wrong way.  What the heck,  I decided to follow. I trailed him around the carriage house, but back at the parking lot were two other patrol cars and a cop waved me to a stop. He approached and asked why I was there.

“I’m taking a walk ,” I said. 

“You use a cane,” he asked. 

Odd question, I thought. Why would he ask that?  “Yes,” I said. “I have ALS.”

He asked my name and address, but not for my license or registration. I was glad, because I wan’t sure where the registration was for the reantal. After all, this wasn’t my actual car.

“We had a report,” said the cop, “ the there was an old man acting strange around the mansion.”

I don’t know who would make such a report and didn’t think I was acting strange. I notice other cops hanging about behind us kind of  giggling at all this, but I was scared to death. 

“You can go,” the officer finally said after peaking in the back of the rental.

“Can I get out this way?” I asked.

“Sure.”

I slowly drove out of the park, but this so shook me up I didn’t go back to Rockwood for a couple months. I did my next walks at Bellevue.

At the Thomas Jefferson ALS Clinic the Physical Therapists kept pushing me to give up my walking stick and begin using a Walker.  You know I am quite a stubborn guy and I kept resisting that idea. Itt was as if they thought I was an old man or something. Then an instance occurs that changed my wind. I was still getting up and going for a walk, not at Bellevue State park hoping to avoid any moretwo women walking a dog confrontations by police. Bellevue is more interesting anyway for long walks. I would go up a small hill two women walking a dog
until I came to a dirt and gravel lane that ran along a fence rows of trees bordering the parking lot of an office mall. I would follow this until I turned onto some meadows that circles along and led back to a paved walkway. Then I would cross the main drive and go down a dirt road to  another paved path. This one went down an incline with a couple of twists before taking me back close to the parking lot.  Halfway down this path was a bench. 

Since getting ALS I tire easy and coming to this bench I decided to sit and rest a few moments, except…except I could not sit down.  I tried, but all I succeeded in doing was circle the blasted Bench. I went around it a couple time and as I rounded the  side again I lost my balance and fell.

But I didn’t fall over on the ground. No. I landed on top of the bench, not where you sit, ut up on the narrow top of the back rest, something maybe three inches wide at best. And there I stuck. I could not get off this narrow back. I could not push myself off with hands or feet.  I lay trapped on my belly with my rear in the air.  I wore short-shorts, because it was summer, and no underwear My shorts were pushed upward as I tumbled into a kind wedgie.  

There were women walking a dog at the top of the path. 

“Do you need help,” one called. 

“Yes,” I cried and the two along with the go came down the path. 

I felt very exposed now. What might have been showing to these ladies I do not know. But I could not do  anything about. They tried to push me off the top, but without any luck.  I couldn’t see to the side that one woman was on her seat phone. A car stopped down on the drive and someone ran up, but he couldn’t push me over either. He did hand me a bottle of water before he left. Another man came up the path and he was able to get me off the back onto the siting bench, which felt niche between.

Suddenly I noticed an ambulance slowly came along the drive and stopped. The one woman must have called 911. Two paramedics came hustling up the path pushing a gurney,

“We won’t need that I shouted.” 

They reached me and I said, “just get to me to my feet and I’ll get to my car and get home.”

One of the paramedics took the gurney back and the other stayed by him walking me back to my car.

“Are you sure you can drive,” he asked.

“I’ll be okay.  I waved goodbye and went home.

 

Soon after I received a Rollator from the clinic. It looked like just the thing. It had four wheels and hand brakes. It also had a fold down seat on front so if one got tired they could sit down for  bit. 

I took it to the park and
started along. Going up and incline it was very slow. This was an effort, but coming down a decline…holy cow, it turned into a roller coaster and kept  picking up speed.

I didn’t feel I could control, brakes or not. It just took off with me and next thing I knew I hit a tree and tumbled over.

Fortunately for me there was a special event at the park and a lot of  cars were arriving early for it. Some stopped along the main drive and several people dashed over and helped me up. After this I put away the collator and began using a walker.

I was also glad to get rid of that oversized rental car.

Soon afterward Covid 18 came along and everybody was wearing masks.

Back in 2019, following a long line if therapists, I got an aide. This is the only one I did not get a photo of. Her name was Evelyn Boone. She was my Aide for over a year and a very good, and caring, person. Unfortunately, we had 7 cats and although she was not allergic to the animals when she began here she developed an allergy to the pets a year later
and she had to quit. 

 

Something  happened to me that was very frightening.   On June I took nap and when I awoke felt disoriented. I wasn’t sure where I was. I asked Lois to call Bayada, who supplied my aide.. Next thing I knew an ambulance pulled into our driveway and two Paramedics knocked on the front door. 

  

My friend and neighbor from two doors away walked up and helped them load me up. His name is Ron Reid. He used his vehicle to pull our float in the Claymont Christmas Parade every year.  I met Ron a couple years after he moved into the neighborhood. Lois and I sent a welcome gift down via our kids. A day or so later rigs car pulls and this Black Man called out the window I a gruff voice, “Hey, you got kids?” Sacred me. Ron and and I became good friend after that.

 

 I was driven to Christiana Care’s Wilmington Hospital, a few blocks from where I use to work for Wilmington Trust. The Paramedics  unloaded me and I can remember being pushed down a hallway into Emergency. 

I discovered this was the quick way into  Emergency, let the
paramedics get you there. There was no hanging around in the waiting room for hours

 I saw a nurse and doctor right away and was soon booked into a room for the night. It was a nice bright room and very attentive nurses. I didn’t like they gave me an IV innediatey, but seems to be what they do these day. I also didn’t like getting an injection in my stomach every day I was there, but they told me that was to prevent any blood clots.

There was another bed and customer in with ne, but a larfw curtain hid us from each other I saw the guy briefly when they wheeled me in. I heard him speak to a nurse several times. He sounded like a very old man. Turned out he was at least ten years younger than I. 

Not long after I arrived I was placed in a Hoyer lift upon a ceiling track by an intern and hoisted up, like some kind of amusement ride, and transferred onto a gurney again.

They said I was being taken down for a  CT Scan.  I was
ruled through a lot of hallways, but all I could see were the overhead lights. Then it was down an elevator and more hallways into the basement. 

The imaging room was occupied so we had to wait outside. The intern pushed me down the hall bit and into an alcove where he left me.

Where was I, There was no one around. I knew I was in the basement and this must have been storage area because it held a lot of equipment.  I lay there helpless. No one came or went in the hall. Had I been forgotten? How would I escape. Even if I got off the gurney I would never find my away around all the passages we rolled down. I was feeling a little panicky.  The guy was  along time coming back, but finally he did and rolled me into the now unoccupied imaging room.

He rolled the gurney next to the machine and helped the technician  slide me onto the tray.   I didn’t mind the CT. Was in one before when they were checking my Graves Diseased eyes. It was not claustrophobic like an MRI. Then it was a ride back to my room.

The old guy next door was gone. He was placed by a much younger fellow. People were questioning this guy while I had my Hoyer Lift ride back into bed. 

That night I noticed a nurse bring a chair and sit just on the other side of the curtain, as if she were guarding the patient next door all night.  The next morning she took the chair and left and I heard a doctor interviewing the guy.  

He was in the hospital because he broke up his glass crack
pipe and swallowed the pieces.  Once the doctors removed the glass from his innards and patched him up, that police would come and arrest him.  Apparently the nurse was stationed by the curtain all night to make certain he didn’t slip out. Always learning new stories,

I was taken on a gurney again, down the halls to the imaging department. Thistime they were going to do an MRI, which worried me because the last such I had panicked.  But they injected something through my IV that was suppose to calm me. Maybe it did because I didn’t mid it this time. The MRI machine was slightly different. It had a screen right in front of my face that televised the traffic crossing the

 Brandywine on the bridge next to the hospital. It was actually interesting.

The next morning they old me I had a stroke. Then they shipped me outta there.  Hospitals don’t like patients hanging around long. They need the bed.  I was taken down to Mr. Ambulance and hauled elsewhere. I  never learned the fate of the crackhead and his pipe.

It was, they said, an Ischemic Stroke. They put me on a blood-thinner and told me not to shave with a razor anymore. 

I couldn’t believe I had a stroke. Everything seemed to be
working just like before. I could talk plainly and nothing was impaired. I didn’t really believe them I have since been told most people  don’t remember have a stroke.