The Hour of Death
Experienced rehabbers know sometimes the young die quickly and often unexpectedly.
We received a baby Goldfinch. He was a wee one, no heft to him at all. If you set him in your hand, you’d have to look to be sure he was there at all.
Because of some unexplained injury to his leg, he could not perch. In the wild, a bird that cannot perch cannot live.
Sabrina and I tried to train him. We found some tiny branches and set them in his cage floor. We’d set him on the branch, he’d hold a wobbling stance, and then fall off.
But there was one other thing: he was the singingest little bird you ever saw. I doubt I’ve ever encountered a happier creature set in God’s whole creation. His bum leg did nothing to diminish his spirits. Chirp, chirp, chirp.
One day, I passed by his room about 4 o’clock, he was singing as usual, chirp, chirp, chirp. I checked on him an hour later and he was lifeless on the floor of his cage. He sang right up to the hour of his death!
Is there a mystery here, something far off from my understanding? Or is it a marvel, something to be wondered at but never explained? Whatever it is, I can still hear the little guy singing.
…I stood at her bedside and read the little old lady’s nursing notes.
“Presents with feeling weak and dizzy for a `long time’. No worse. States she had some free time, so she thought she’d drop by for a comprehensive work-up and miracle cure. Local physician knows nothing about this complaint.”
Reading further, I found that this lady had been basking in various forms of deteriorating health for many years. Dates the onset of her `weak and dizzy’ to the defeat at the Alamo.
Then, I did something I knew I shouldn’t have done. I asked her about today’s attack.
Apparently it came on this morning when her new Airdale [which she obtained four weeks ago last Monday at the SPCA, for $39–the original price was $52, but with expert haggling she was able to get the discount implied above…and they threw in all of his shots for free including the one for dystemper because his records got lost in a hurricane and no one was sure if he had ever had them or not and so they’d give him another just to be sure because it certainly couldn’t hurt and it being better to be safe than sorry and all especially since he was the pick of the litter, well at least second pick, him with the cutest little black ring around his eye, you know…] urinated unexpectedly on the teal throw rug in the foyer, the one which had been in her family for just ever so long.
That’s when today’s spell came on.
And people criticize physicians for interrupting!
People like this would worry the hair off a were-wolf! I could not help but be less charitably inclined towards this person after being kicked deaf, dumb and blind by her mountain of meandering and, whenever inappropriate, data. So far I had about twenty minutes of reportage that was as useful as a one-legged short-stop.
This is not uncommon in the ER though. Many of our patients’ histories are possessed of every fine quality except that of being relevant. To have someone come in and give a tight, concise recitation of ailment would bear an unmistakable kinship to Al Gore coming out in favor of fossil fuels.
So I stood there watching her flap large lazy wings, circling the issue and hoping all the while that she would someday land.
Other essential data gathered during that inspired exercise of the immaterial: she had no difficulty breathing but does have frequent difficulty with shortness of breath.
She takes a blue pill when she needs it…maybe for her thyroid; seven lavender-like or deepish purple colored, really, pills per day, for circulation; and a small white pill that she was told by her personal physician to take, although he never said why; she asked him why but he never would say. And no, she did not bring the bottles with her; that was not her responsibility. I could simply call her doctor and find out that information for myself except he’s on vacation for a month and his office is locked up tighter than a miser’s purse at a fund-raiser.
That her physician had taken an extended vacation I could readily understand.
I felt like I’d been through a cardiac stress test….and had no idea whether I’d passed it or not.
Probably not . . . But tomorrow’s a new day.
By Lucky Garvin [email protected]