The Roommate

The Roommate

 I did not want to alarm my grandson as I drove him to school that Tuesday morning, But I did. I saw it written all over his face. As I fought to breathe, I opened the window and complained about my recurring plight. Gasping for air is like no other bodily ailment. Nothing sends a panic faster through your whole being than the struggle to fill your lungs with the life-giving oxygen to survive.

           A health problem in my life had come to a head and I was most frightened.

           The clues were there in plain sight: swollen ankles, constant fatigue. What was transpiring in my body was not an overnight condition but something that had been brewing for months.

           However, the one stark symptom that I chose to ignore as something that would go away in due time, the screaming telltale sign that I kept secret and did not share with my wife or anyone was my progressive shortness of breath. It was occurring with more frequency; when I walked up the half flight of stairs in our split entry home, when taking the garbage and recycling cans to the street for pick-up, when I walked up my favorite hill on the trail and climbed slower with distressed effort. I was pausing to sit on the benches like never before.

           The hidden dread of something serious at last broke into the open on that spring day in May. Returning home, I labored to catch a full breath throughout the afternoon. It was early evening when I told my wife that I was in dire difficulty. That is when the many new firsts unfolded.

           First ride as a patient in an ambulance. Never before in my eighty years.

           First time waiting in an emergency room as the afflicted one and not the one who drove another.

           First night spent in an ICU bed.

           First time with a major physical condition that required grave medical intervention.

           I smiled at everyone but in my gut, I was in a panic.

         They placed me in a room across from the nurse's station after several minutes on a breathing machine in the ER forcing air into me. A parade of hospital personnel came and went; X-rays of my chest, constant blood pressures, other vitals and the beginning of a regime of medications. Later that evening, I found some relief as skilled technicians punctured my back with a long needle and took the fluid off one lung. The second one would wait until the following morning to be emptied of the buildup, the undeniable cause of the shortness of breath. I was stupefied, shocked at the amount drained. One of the specialists asked if I wanted to see the bag. More than a liter had been extracted from each side. I felt a great respite from that alone but also a humility at allowing it to get to this point.

       I spent the full day of Wednesday in that critical unit. My family visited as I was already feeling better but yet to be diagnosed for a long-time remedy. I enjoyed the attention even though I was embarrassed at not revealing my misery earlier.

    That night I learned that I would be having a heart catheterization the following morning. I would spend that second night in an intermediate room down the hall.  I can remember the transport aide commenting that I was very lucky. The new room had two beds yet I would still have the place to myself for the night. I slept well despite being awakened more than once for pills. The back ache was gone. I breathed full throated intakes and my organs received the needed element.

           I awoke refreshed and ready for yet another first in my life: cardiac catheterization. It was explained that depending on my veins, the tube carrying the tiny camera would enter my arteries through either my wrist or groin and travel to take pictures of the heart. The physician explained that if something needed to be done, such as the implanting of a stent, he would perform it right away.

         Two things calmed me, the arrival of my wife to be there supporting me plus a mild sedative they must have given me. I felt peaceful; amazed at this whole new occurrence, which thousands of others before me had experienced, many more than once. I watched the clock anticipating aides arriving to wheel me down to the Cath lab as everyone nonchalantly referred to it.

           Until …

         Two nurses swished into the room, announcing that I would be getting a roommate. They hurriedly prepared the bed near the window. The second message was that my procedure would be delayed, perhaps two hours or more. There had arisen a more imminent emergency: my surprise roommate and fellow heart patient.

           The new person that I would be confined with for the next three and a half days.

           A man who would be the absolute opposite personality than me.

           Mike.

        He walked into the room wearing a head bandanna, a hefty motorcycle jacket with skulls and crossed bones stenciled on the back, a thick metal belt and large, heavy black boots. He carried the brawny helmet in his arms before tossing it atop the sheet. I heard the initial flabbergasted statement he made, informing the hospital personnel that followed him into the room past the bottom of my bed. He had ridden his Yamaha to the emergency room door. It was parked outside under lock and key, where it would remain the entire time that he would spend as a patient.

          He was shorter than me and I am not a tall man. He was stout, a protruding stomach and breathing the shortest puffs of breaths with immense effort. The three medical administrators encircled him, seeking information.

           “Was he a diabetic?”

           “Yes.”

           “Had he taken his insulin medication?”

           “No!”

           “Why not?”

       He had none to take because he had no money. “Too expensive,” I heard him say with a defeated attitude. He appeared annoyed and disgusted with the volley of questions as the one woman filled out a form. A second person interrupted to enlighten him that there were programs to help, which they would discuss later.

           “Did he have insurance?”

           “No.”

        Although it should have been a private conversation, I was laying there close by in the other bed and had no way not to hear without holding my ears in a childish manner. Within minutes he was on the gurney heading to the lab for the emergency Cath.

           In no way was I upset. Still composed, I felt something for the guy in his “anguish. Since his procedure bumped mine to a later time, I felt comfortable knowing that perhaps I was not as bad off as him. I had insurance; I had support with me in the person of my wife; I had been cared for properly the past two days. I received numerous texts from family, nephews and nieces and friends to wish me well.

         Despite that my turn came to be transported around eleven thirty, still it was another hour and a half before I would lay naked on the cold steel table in the lab being prepped.

           The time dragged on.

           I wondered how the man who would have the bed next to me upstairs had done. Would we still be roommates when I returned? Once more I prided myself on how unruffled I remained in this wholly new environment and experience. I think back and am convinced that it was the gentleness, the professionalism and the compassion embodied in the cardiologist who would perform the catheterization. In his early forties, a most pleasant smile on his face and his peaceful bedside manner, he put me at ease. Absent any condescending tone, he explained everything that would take place. Something clicked between us and I felt a strong trust in him. We connected.

     He explained how he would feed the tiny camera, itself astonishing to me, a task performed several times a day in that lab, up the artery to view the sections of my heart. Feeling and tapping my wrist at the point where a pulse is taken, he concluded that it was satisfactory enough to use that spot and not enter through my groin. To say that I felt success with that small item is to say I was soaking in the whole unreal experience. He expressed to me that employing the wrist was less invasive, easier for him and quickened the time of the operation.

           Congratulating me on remaining still the whole time, he told me, while removing his surgical gloves, that he had a difficult time with one particular clogged artery, the one within which he had placed a stent. He informed me that he wanted to do another but not at this time. It would be scheduled within a month.

           I arrived back in my room around three thirty. For the rest of that day, from Wednesday until Saturday morning when we would both be released, I would spend my waking minutes with Mike. Other than a short walk down the hall on Friday afternoon with my wife, I would not be leaving the room.

           The adventure of a new friendship began

           A friendship like never before for me. I say that with awe and gratitude.

           It is often said that opposites attract each other but I don’t think that phrase was coined for this situation but rather a romantic one. What would it be like to converse with a person so different from me?

      We were counterparts, in age, in temperament and most stunningly, in backgrounds.

        He was fifty-three; I had become an octogenarian the previous January.

           Although we both sported gray or white hair, he had a beard. I did not. It was shaped like a goatee, an upside-down triangular stub on his chin. Unlike the common ones, his descended down into a curly strand about the length and look of a pig’s twisted tail. It is an understatement to say it was distinctive. In my initial impression, it coincided with his “off the wall personality.”

           My inner thoughts said it would be tedious spending time in his presence. His opening statement confirmed my suspicions and caused me to think fast. To this day, I don’t know why he chose to open a conversation like he did. Did he already know some of my history? Was he surmising and sizing me up by my looks as I was him?

         “So, what would you think about an atheist who has ridden with the pagans,” he said as we were both alone in the room.

           I answered without hesitation from my heart and beliefs. “I accept everyone as they are.” How could I not express it as I did. I had taught that to my students in Catholic school, I had preached it in homilies and I had tried to live according to that motto.

           He cracked an honest smile. “Well, I do believe in God,” he clarified, “I just don’t think it necessary to worship in a specific place.” We had not yet spoken of our lives. Why would he follow up his initial salvo by mentioning the Lord?

           I would ask for no more of an explanation. Did my simple answer disarm him in a flash?

           We would spend the rest of that day, Thursday, Friday and half of Saturday restricted together in that two-bed hospital room. In the span of those fifty some hours, we came to share our stories, our jokes and our cell phone numbers.

           How he discerned more of my background was simple. My family and friends were aware that early on in my life I was an active Catholic priest before taking a year’s leave of absence. It was during that time that I met my wife and have been married for forty-three years. He heard us discussing an upcoming wedding that I was scheduled to perform. Because of that background I have belonged to a organization of former priests throughout the United States, who have left the active ministry and presented ourselves as officiants for weddings for young couples seeking a spiritual ceremony but a different venue other than inside a church. Most of them want outdoor places in nature to pronounce their vows.

           I had one scheduled for the following week, a couple that I had become quite fond of as we prepared together over the past year. I was uncertain of my status with leaving the hospital as well as my stamina at the time to do the ceremony with dignity. The venue was a distance away. I determined with my wife that I would explain things, find a substitute officiant from the group to perform their nuptials. It was all these conversations that Mike overheard. Alone with each other that evening, he asked not one but several questions, all the while apologizing for listening in on what he heard. How could he not? We were side by side in our respective beds.

           After referring to himself as a proud atheist, he sure peppered me with a million inquiries about my past and present ministries. I was honest in my answers. Throughout it all, I sensed a respect for my previous career. Was it because of my age or my past? As I have since reflected on this encounter, I believe it was both. He spoke highly of his own dad. I respected that.

           It was time for his story. To reveal that Mike lived on the edge does not begin to tell his tale. At age twenty-two, having wrecked his motorcycle going one hundred and twenty miles per hour on some country road, he was life-flighted to the hospital.

       Myself at that age was studying theology at Catholic University.

           He had run wild with alcohol, drugs as serious as cocaine and been in many a bar fight.

           I lived in a religious community; had little if any dealings with these societal issues.

    Underneath his scrappy façade, I witnessed a kind, compassionate man. One anecdote to relay. Due to a recommendation from the cardiologist, the Wednesday evening meal and all three on Thursday were to be a liquid diet. Mike teased as he ate a robust full heart-healthy lunch and dinner. On Friday, it was determined that I was okay for a regular meal at lunchtime and beyond. But no one informed the desk on our floor. I had the bland offering in the afternoon and when it happened for dinner, I was confused that no one responded to the change allowing me a better meal. Mike offered to split his whole meal with me. Here was the rough and rowdy motorcycle pagan, a man who often fought anyone who would take something of his from him, willing to share whatever he had with me.

          I thanked him but declined. He suggested that I page the male nurse to say that I was supposed to receive a regular meal such as his. I did and Paul called the kitchen to have one sent up later that evening. Mike jested that he wanted half of mine for coming up with the idea.

      We have since talked a few times on the phone asking about each other’s progress in our health. I will never forget another statement of wisdom that he said more than once on those days. I had him text it to me that I might quote him exactly: “You lived a good Christian life and I lived mine as a heathen biker and look where we are, exactly in the same place.”

           Our lives, our stories, our backgrounds, our histories were as far distanced from each other on any spectrum as it could be. Yet there existed a bond because of why we were in that room. That was no coincidence. It convinced me again that, however you wish to think about it, there are those special people placed in the situations of our lives to get us through some problem or difficulty.

           He was so right in his unsophisticated discernment.

           He was there to help me through it.

           I was there to help him through it.

           During those hours and days, he questioned me often about my life, my beliefs and my experiences; I likewise listened intently to his story and life journey. We both ended up, as he said, “in the same place.”

           Saturday morning, after rounds from our doctors, we were to be released from the hospital. I phoned to relay a time. Mike had one last funny quip: “Tell your wife that she can stay home and doesn’t have to come. I will ride you home on the back of my motorcycle.”

           Within the hour, he dressed, strapped on the large boots that sat by the bed, donned the jacket (before he did, he had me hold it to verify how heavy it was), cradled his helmet under his arm and left. The discharging nurse requested that he be wheeled to the door. He declined; walked out to where the bike sat all that time and rode home.

        Later the next afternoon, recuperating in the comfort of my family room and reflecting on the week that was in my life, I pulled a special book from the shelf. I reread my favorite lines, written by a talented past poet:

                       I’ll not be threatened by our differences

                       I’ll sing of what we share and celebrate

                       the uniqueness

                       we bring to each other.